Blog Your Blessings: The Perfect Life is the one you Live

Monday offered a splendid moment that fueled my entire week with pure happiness. I had an eighth-grade class read a New York Times article (yes, the illiterati can do this) about a drug scientists are developing that can enhance and erase memory. An injection of this stuff and that pesky addition to drugs is gone. That memory of a terrible crime is erased. The Bad Day file cabinet gets dumped on the fire. Conversely, the drug might be used to improve learning and therefore improve the quality of life.

We discussed the pros and cons. Right away the boys thought of all those CIA operatives who could be medicated instead of eliminated. They thought of rape victims whose peace of mind could be restored. They thought of how well they might do in school with a shot of this stuff.
We could become designer people. So the children realized.

My mind shot back to a story I read a few years ago in the Atlantic that discussed IVF clients who seek out the just right young ladies--Ivy League students with great bodies and good family backgrounds, for example--to donate their eggs for implantation. Eugenics by another name. But, Sandy, keep your mind on the task at hand. Listen to your students....

Amid the chatter of students imaging the perfect, albeit medicated, life, one quiet, ponderous, sweet, and gentle boy put up his hand. "But, Miss," he said in the low tone that stops the presses ever time. Listen, everybody. "Miss," he said, "you can't do that. You can't do that because you are what you remember--that's who you are."

That's who you are. Live it.

Thank you, sweet boy for whom being principled is pure common sense.

Blog Your Blessings

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17 Comments

  1. Children often have much more insight into life (and more common sense) than we give them credit for.

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  2. Oh he has it spot on doesn't he?

    Thinking Stepford Wives and shuddering...

    Another brilliant, thought provoking post, full of hope. These are our children and they give me hope. :)

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  3. Anonymous9:25 PM

    Oh, I love that kid! What a heart and mind.

    The drug sounds like sci-fi...WOW!

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  4. Out of the mouths of babes.

    I'm betting that when the perpetrators of the recent fecalities are brought to justice, you will not find this kid among them.

    What a gem.

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  5. I am glad that is at least one who gets it!

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  6. Hopefully, the rest of the class will remember his answer! What a blessing he was/is without knowing it!

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  7. great thought that's one of the few things we can take with us is what we remember and what we learned from those experiences...

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  8. Now there's a perceptive young man. And he's also polite! A gem.

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  9. Happy Easter to you and your loved ones, Sandy!

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  10. That is one very smart kid. Happy Easter, Sandy.

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  11. What an insight--what a kid! I hope life is kind to him; I hope he goes far.

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  12. That young man gets a gold star. He is as, we say in geocaching: "Spot on."

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  13. Oh what a darling! I'll bet your eyes hugged him. :)

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  14. He is a bright one! ;)

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  15. A gem (the student)
    a worthy setting (this post)
    Love you, Sandy. aloha-

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  16. Oh so true. Isn't it amazing what wisdom can be heard if one is listening.

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  17. Ah ... reading this brings back poignant classroom memories of my own and makes me miss teaching ... for a moment ;--)
    Hugs and blessings,

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