Website owner:  James Miller

Born into a world of hardship and struggle


   Born into this world of injustice, hardship, and struggle; of 
   lie, illusion and deception.  Born naked, without clothes, 
   money or possessions; born with nothing other than abilities of 
   various kinds (i.e. abilities to see, hear, smell, learn, 
   reason, etc.); born only with potential - potential that only 
   you yourself can develop through substantial personal effort, 
   much perseverance, much hard work.

   Born with needs:  The need for food on a continuing basis.  The 
   need for clothes or blankets for protection from the cold.  The 
   need for shelter from the elements.

   Born in a state of dependence.  Born fragile, vulnerable, 
   dependent upon the goodness and mercy of others for everything 
   you need (i.e. born dependent on your parents for supplying 
   your food and other needs).

   Born into a strange, new world filled with wonders.  What a 
   wonderful, strange, amazing world this is that you have just 
   come into!  You see interesting beings communicating with each 
   other by making strange, nonsensical sounds.  What is the 
   meaning of all this?  You listen to the sounds they are making 
   and are curious to know what they mean.  So now you encounter 
   your first experience with struggle and frustration in this 
   strange new world you have just entered:  the struggle and 
   frustration of breaking up the flow of all these sounds into 
   separate words and figuring out the meanings being communicated 
   i.e. of learning a language.  You will spend years on this task 
   and you will sometimes wonder how long it will take for you to 
   learn the meanings of all the big words adults use and 
   understand all that they say.  With effort, struggle and time, 
   you slowly learn the meanings of more and more words and become 
   able to use them yourself to communicate.  Then, after a few 
   years, you will go to school and learn how to read, write, 
   calculate with numbers, etc.  And, with passing years, you will 
   encounter all the many things that are part and parcel of this 
   strange, new world you came into: things like selfishness, 
   malice, envy, jealousy, pride, anger, lust, bias, hatred, 
   violence, greed, deceit, lie, etc.

   As years pass you will encounter obstacle after obstacle and 
   test after test of your mettle.  You will encounter temptation 
   after temptation to do the wrong thing and to go in the wrong 
   way.  You will find that there is often an easy way and a hard 
   way, with the easy way being the wrong way and the hard way the 
   right way.  You will see that one can lie, cheat and steal his 
   way through life and that many people take that path.  You will 
   find that lie, deceit and badness reign in this world and that 
   the world is filled with people who live without principle, 
   people who live by plundering others.  You will find yourself 
   at the mercy of social systems, human organizations and 
   institutions (e.g. school systems), and realize that they have 
   potential for doing you great harm.  You will find it to be a 
   world of danger.  You will learn that there are very few people 
   in this world that you can really trust, that at the bottom of 
   it all you are very much alone in this life, and that you must 
   pick your way through life with great care.  


   Aug 2003




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