i just finished reading the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and i loved it. it gives a very different non-stereotypical portrayal of a family who have very educated and talented parents (stereotypically it would be big house, academics career, and glossy looking smart children)who chose to go against the norm and live like wanderers, adventurous and vagabond, moving from one place to another.

really, i can’t stop reading it, and at almost every page, i would be expressing “what??!!” “seriously??” “what kind of a parent is this??” “what the toots?” and “WOW!” but it has nothing to do with violence or psychological disorder, or “My name is Dave”-like stories. it’s just that the Walls parents (yes its based on real life story) have a different way of teaching their four children, imparting values from a different angle. for example, letting insects and pests practically breed in their rickety house because you don’t have the right to kill or destroy other living beings. despite the noble values the parents taught them, and the education they gave from home (the Walls children are geniuses) it’s the standard of living which is almost ridiculous. the children eating from leftovers or surviving on margarine or corn for whole days on end, being on a hunger strike because their father is away looking for gold and mother unable to keep a teaching job because of her eccentric nature of teaching.

but i envy the children much because of their independence and smartness, up to the point that they tried ways and took up menial jobs(paper runs, babysitting! when they themselves need babysitting! collecting tins and bottles) from the age of as young as five just to get a morsel of food. and the thing is they don’t rebel and indulge in gangsterism/drinking/drugs/friends’ bad influence. they just don’t. and that’s what amazes me. of course, being children, and eventually teens, they build their own perspectives on things, but they didn’t blame their parents. they very much love their parents still and instead, in whatever it is they were doing, their agenda would be to make less burden for their parents. and yes the parents had their own flaws.

because, if it’s in some community, oklah, my community. it would be a totally different story right? give the same scenario and you get different reactions. of course, i’m not generalising, but in most cases.

just this week, we got a whole list of thumbnail pics on BH of youths involved in physical conflict. and for what?

it’s been quite some time since we heard of a group of boys caught for a fight. and we thought things are getting better? i don’t think so.

despite the activities and everything else people are doing, problems like this arises. last week, in my discovering coversation circle session, we had to picture ourselves in 2025.

the picture which most of us had would be technologically-inspired infrastructure and wealth and whatnots. but we share one concern (despite adhering to different religions), the human touch and religion. where would religion fit in with all the rush to obtain material wealth? it’s a hedonistic materialistic world. (wow, such a long time since last i used that word was in an Islamic Contemporary Issues Exam)and it’s a scary world. looking at the state of world now, all right let’s not go global yet. just look at the current community we are living in. just two months ago, during Ramadhan, me and few other blogger friends were lamenting on the ignorance and insignificant understanding of Ramadhan by the mainstream.
(why do i even start calling them ‘mainstream’? so who’s going ‘indie’ then?)

and being a pre-sociologist, i have to admit, i’m scared of change.

while talking about marriage and weddings (http://invoke.sg) an acquaintance put it rightly so “question here is have we start that seismic shift or are still caught up in academic debates?”

talk is cheap. but are we ready for change? i say not. until the X generation make way to the Y, sociologically speaking.

most people have these academic dreams of a glass castle, but made of what?
by the standard of living when you’re in an economic -driven country, or the quality of living, when we’re investing on an afterlife castle?