SCs : Do you ever spend a bit of time reading to a grade school kid?

It's surprising how little real wisdom comes from experience. Most people wind up doing what they intended to do from the beginning, only with more practice. But it would obviously be a mistake to imagine that, for example, a paid killer for an organized crime syndicate has anything to teach the young, simply because he's accomplished at what he does.

Being able to see the truth and being able to act conscientiously in accordance with what you see are like talent or opportunity or health--they are gifts that are not equally distributed. You have to size up your circumstances as honesty as you can, and then take calculated risks based on where you find yourself. By all means, try to become a poet or a scientist or an explorer.

But don't be too reckless with your emotions or with your money. And on the other hand don't be too conservative either. Try at least to avoid such obvious snares and pitfalls as wage-slavery, mass entertainment, patriotism, marriage, and religion.

Religion is particularly to be avoided. It causes more trouble than any other social institution in history. Think of all the people who have been drawn to it because they had a good conscience and hoped that religion would further instruct them.

(Which is absurd on the face of it. Nobody needs to be instructed to know that lying and stealing and rape are wrong.) And religion repays their trust by telling them a lot of infantile stories about a never-never-land in the sky, which does not refine ethics. It turns ethics into a crass bargain.

And what's worse: Religion also teaches them that to be conscientious, they must be dogmatic and hateful. Look at Kim Davis. She's a great illustration of what religion will do to you.

Once upon a time Kim was probably a fairly nice person. But Apostolic Christianity has turned her into a militant, angry, narrow-minded, theocratic nitwit. Not to mention a trouble-maker, a criminal, and a buffoon.

Best of luck. Here's Bing Crosby singing about the pleasures of going through life as a bum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ryp2G55m...

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