Some Thoughts on My Past
To My Younger Self:
Most of my future is behind me, so in an effort to clarify some of my life's teachings, I am writing some letters to my younger self.
I have always considered myself an observer of the passing scene—meaning I ask many people what they think about things and try to observe what is happening in the world around me. I never pass judgment on what I see and hear except to say to myself what I would or wouldn't do. I usually keep my thoughts and opinions to myself to avoid influencing what people tell me. Additionally, I never tell anybody what someone else has said or done. As a character in a movie said, "I am where secrets go to die."
I stay in the middle, realizing that my opinions are subject to change as I learn more about the world around me. Many human actions make no sense to me until I see the reasoning behind them. This is not to say that I agree with them, only that I gain some small understanding of why they say or do what they do.
We all have a worldview and our place in it. When we encounter new objects we have never seen before or are exposed to new ideas that make us question our beliefs, we are either open to accepting these new ideas, or our minds are closed, and we reject anything that questions our concepts of the world we think we know. This explains why so many people are afraid of…
