Kelly,
If I were like Linz in the off days of his period and without an ounce of good will to anyone concerned, I would have said “what a load of crap this article is! I am shocked that it is appeared on an Sense of Life Objectivist forum, when the spirit of the article is completely opposite to what I understand as Sense of Life!”
You quote me:
“Michael is talking about an artist’s own pursuit that is true to his talent and passion.”
Stress added by me and I meant every word of it. In your discussion you conveniently castrated my sentence in order to suite your own agenda, and that is self-serving and dishonest…
(I could go on…)
(Turn off Linz mode. Please take note how that makes you feel, and makes everyone in this thread feel...)
Instead, I will now comment on your article with as much kindness and good will that I can muster at the moment.
Kelly,
I appreciate very much that your take my post to heart and that it inspired you to write this article. I could have said exactly the same thing when I was your age. Actually I did have said exactly the same thing years ago to my baby brother whom I had taken under my wings against our parents, who were not unlike yours.
However, now that fifteen years later, half of my most productive years in life have passed, I start to see things in a different light.
Kelly, you said that you are very talented academically in literature, poetry, etc, but you just “don’t like that stuff that much”. Exactly what part in an academic career that you don’t like? You said that academic pursuits don’t give you the kind of fulfillment necessary for a career. What have you chosen as your career then?
You have taught kids, apprenticed as midwife, did gardening and farming, though you still are quite young. Yes, you said you enjoyed getting your finger dirty. Would you consider it the dream of your life?
You are wrong about Mozart. He was forced by his father to practice many hours everyday and late into the night, he definitely worked much much harder than any of today’s kids. And Beethoven too. He was spanked by his father for being lazy when he was little. How do I know about all these? My 8 year old son told me! He loves classical music, plays piano beautifully, reads everything about composer – but hates practice!
Adam mentions that some kids may lack the inner strength to fulfill their talent and inspiration in life. The inner strength is also not entirely inborn. As parents we have to do our best to teach and nurture them.
Well, that’s all the time I have for now.
Regards,
Hong
P.S. To whoever sanctioned my posts yesterday - I understand and I appreciate. Thank you. - H.
(Edited by Hong Zhang on 4/20, 12:49pm)
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