I’m looking for feedback on this. It’s a theme of the sci-fi book I’m writing. I’m not sure if I’ll have a character say these words, or if it will be something that is demonstrated by their actions or shorter phrases, instead of a lecture like this. Anyway, appreciate your comments.
My parents tried to teach morals, as well as basic physics, like how a screw works differently form a nail. I listened, sometime. They told me to go to school, and for a while church. School confirmed much of what they said, and at some point, I thought I was smarter than them because I thought I had some new information that they didn’t. More likely, when knowledge came from a variety of sources, I put it together in a way that one person just can’t do. Parents try to be everything. For the first few years of life, they are. The good ones know they can’t be there every minute forever and they point to where they think is best and hope you figure it out.
Unfortunately, this process can be exploited. If you aren’t finding your way, an older person can come along and say they have it. They are as trustworthy as a man in a van with some candy. Instead of pointing you to the library, they say they have a way that isn’t in books, or it’s in a very specific book that they understand better than anyone else, or that their books are the right books and to not read the wrong ones. This type of exploitation is so ancient, it didn’t have a name for most of history, it was the way traditions and culture were passed on. Now we know there are many ways to achieve the same goals, to pass on the same shared values that created free countries and compassionate organizations.
