Fortunes, Lyrics, and Quotes

Fortune Cookie: We must always have old memories and young hopes.

And a riff on a friend's quote: Judge a man by both the enemies and friends he has. His enemies will define what he stands for, his friends will define who he stands with.

And of course, from the Monkee's theme: We're the young generation and we have something to say.

So meandering among these, I realize that I've always been a part of the young generation. Generally, as I grew up, I really didn't want to leave childhood. It wasn't that I didn't understand Adult Responsibilities. I understand them quite well, thank you. After all, as the oldest brother of four kids, I knew that there is no shortage of adult responsibilities, and had at least a clue about what was involved. I've spent a lot of time talking to older adults, and hence knew more about World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II than most kids my age.
There were lots of hard realities which my compères and compadres were simply ignoring.
Using childish logic, I simply decided I'd grow up at my speed, not the one my body was pacing. And if I felt like never, then never it would be.

Hindering my plan to never grow up was that if you really pay attention to what is going on around you, then you really can't just be a kid for the rest of your life. Everyone in the world around you conspires against it. That being said, I'm just stubborn enough to think that some kind of adult-kid blend is better than an all-out abandonment of childhood. I want to keep some of the things that kids have going for them.

Intensity of life is great. Really being involved in what is happening now, is great. Carefully looking at things around you, rather than assuming they are the same as last time, is great. Beyond aspects of Living in the Now, other traits are great too. Some folks consider loyalty to your friends, and prioritizing your life based on idealistic understanding of how things ought to be as childish traits or just not being realistic. The problem with this abandonment mindset is that it avoids true reality.

We are never able to know everything. No matter how we may try to be, (or want to be) self-sufficient or independent or adult, we just can't do it. Recognizing what we can do and what we are incapable of doing is something most kids handle better than adults. There's something about becoming physically larger that causes some folks to forget they learned both of these facts as kids. Some of them start to act like they can do anything, contrary to all facts they see. Other folks start to think they are incapable of doing anything new, and so they limit their lives to stagnancy.

So what am I advocating? Simple truth: We need help.

Where does our help come from? Our friends, Our God, and Our history.
So the friends we make, shape us, cover us, and enhance us. For love covers a multitude of shortcomings. Jesus reminded us that we should become as a little child to be great in the kingdom of heaven. [Mt 18:4] As a child, we have hopes with no reason, but as an adult, our young hopes need more foundations, and the Hope of Glory [Col 1:27] is a very good basis for life. As children of God, we will always be learning, growing, becoming more than we were.
Our present experiences when combined with our memories of old dynamically create our Self.

Finally, our enemies. It has been said, beyond your good friends, no one understands you better than your enemies. In a paradoxical way, we need our enemies just as strongly as we need our friends. In fact, we are commanded to love them. Our enemies help give us clarity of thought, because their antagonism takes advantage of a muddled self. In the process of really opposing, they force us to think through ideas, and resolve inconsistencies. They are part of the character building process that God has given so that we can have integrity, passion, and something to stand for. And in some strange way, in rare cases, some of them change or we change, and friendship ensues.