Interesting article. Reality can be discouraging at times, but accepting that truth definitely helps to achieve your ends (or reduce frustration when you can't).

> they left me in the least wrong situation that was actually available, given all of the constraints

This feels like a leap. Is it impossible to support your sibling's self-expression and teach them emotional resilience? And even if not, the long term psychological impact on the younger sibling of feeling alienated and controlled in their own family must be taken into account.

What a fascinatingly strange article. The two parallel trains of thoughts, only one of which arrives at a satisfying conclusion, but I suppose that is practicing what it preaches.

I was thinking the other day, "why do we have kids?"

The most noble, selfless reason I could think of is "so that they try again". I say, the "most noble" because people have plenty of more selfish reasons: "they'll make me feel better", "to make me a better person", "to keep up with the expectations of my friends and family", "they'll give me comfort when I'm old and frail", "they will care for me". And then no-reasons such as "it's the way things are", and "everybody does it", and "god wants it".

But I prefer mine: "so that they try again". Try what? To right the wrongs, to succeed where we failed. But that is a mirror: if my kids inherit the world of my failures, can I look back into my soul and say that I tried hard enough? When the day they lose something precious comes, and they understand this world is mostly darkness, will I be able to look them in the eyes and say that I tried hard enough to beget the light they crave?

I agree with everything in this article, but there are a few things that make me go hmm.

* The reference to / advertisement of obscure online communities (Agor? Darkworld?)

* The quoted tweet about bloodlines. There are no lines worth speaking of in biology, there are webs. You are not the last one in a very long line, you're a twig on a very big tree. People who talk about their bloodline are often a bit iffy.

So why do I make an issue of it, when I agree with everything they say anyway? Because I actually agree with a lot of what lots of weird sects say - in public. The advertising pitch is often very reasonable even for groups like Mormons or Scientologists, which are 50-250 years out of touch with the trends of the times. This post is very sensible, but it feels like a pitch for something which isn't quite as easy a sell. Maybe this Agor thing.

I feel like there is something I am supposed to know that would help the author make more sense about the flute playing. But I don't really understand what he is talking about?

Was this episode in childhood and now he is a young adult? Did he attend public school?