Monday, December 15, 2008

A Prayer for Conviction

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Never apologize; your friends don't need it and your enemies don't want it. You do not owe anyone anything, no matter what anyone says. Go to university, stay as long as you can, find interesting professors, spend as much time as you can with interesting people.

Don't ever be afraid to talk to your friends, your teachers, your counselors, or anyone else. Parents aren't perfect, and they are often craptacular fuckups, and that's what everyone else you know helps with. But parents are still important. They have had much more time and opportunity to get out of the troubles they've gotten into. They perfectly demonstrate how the most useful knowledge often comes from the most malignant of people.

You're certainly one of the intelligent and talented people I know, and almost certainly not just in music. Learn to ignore the venom people hurl at you while still internalizing the useful information and you will never fail in any meaningful way.

2 comments:

Sean Peterson said...

Parents... are human. I saw their weaknesses and limitations, I recognized myself. Then I put away childish things.

The Once and Future UNIX Man said...

Yes. Exactly. And we're the next generation, and have the benefit of hindsight they didn't. It's foolish of us to worship those who came before us, and foolish to ignore them.