the child’s life had allowed few if any illusions, and she already had an adult awareness that planning and happening were quite different things. - Sheri S. Tepper

With us the inner nature accords with the outer expectation. The body follows the mind, and the mind seeks the soul, which it strives toward but has not yet won. With you it is otherwise. The mind follows the body in pursuit of the soul you have been told you already have. Because you cannot find it, you assume you have lost it somewhere in your past, and this keeps you from achieving it in your future.

A cada paso, hemos sido frustrados por dios. No el Dios verdadero. Un dios falso creado por el hombre para contribuir a su destrucción de la Tierra. Es el dios-glotón que ve bien engullirlo todo en nombre de una humanidad completamente egoísta. Sus diez mandamientos son: yo primero (déjame vivir como quiera); los humanos primero (que todos los otros seres vivos mueran en mi beneficio); el esperma primero (nada de control de natalidad); los nacimientos primero (nada de abortos); los hombres primero (nada de derechos de la mujer); mi cultura/tribu/religión primero (separatismo/terrorismo); mi raza primero (nada de derechos humanos); mi política primero (puñeteros liberales/podridos reaccionarios); mi país primero (ondea la bandera, la bandera, la bandera); y, sobre todo, los beneficios primero.

As previously announced, we are already studying how to remedy the problems with your schools. The causes of their failures are many, ramified, and deeply entrenched in local politics. The most amazing thing about the situation is that fifty years ago, a century ago, your schools were far better than they are now! They taught fewer subjects and taught the better, with far more success and far less jargon. Everyone agreed then that children were children, that is, impulsive, naive, and ignorant creatures in need of training. No one suggested then that schools or teachers had to put up with hostility or violence or that students had “rights” to such behavior or that freedom of speech included rudeness in the classroom. Persons could be expelled from school and sometimes were. Children were expected to be good citizens and mannerly, and the schools taught citizenship and manners. A necessary adjunct to the school was the truant officer, who sought out and detained any child under eighteen who was not in school, and children did not get out of school until they could read and write and do arithmetic. As is true on so many worlds, the theoreticians and politicians have ruined a good thing.