Loved this essay from Paul Graham on the Lies We Tell Kids. This quote struck me as useful for the future:
If parents told their kids the truth about sex and drugs, it would be: the reason you should avoid these things is that you have lousy judgement. People with twice your experience still get burned by them. But this may be one of those cases where the truth wouldn’t be convincing, because one of the symptoms of bad judgement is believing you have good judgement. When you’re too weak to lift something, you can tell, but when you’re making a decision impetuously, you’re all the more sure of it.
Another idea from the essay: that jadedness cuts off the opportunity for growth. I haven’t seen it expressed before, but it rings true for me. It’s one of the reasons you won’t find me jaded about very many things. As soon as you’re willing to blow off anything at the surface you cut yourself off from being able to learn from it – good or bad. Another good quote that’s related:
Innocence is also open-mindedness. We want kids to be innocent so they can continue to learn. Paradoxical as it sounds, there are some kinds of knowledge that get in the way of other kinds of knowledge. If you’re going to learn that the world is a brutal place full of people trying to take advantage of one another, you’re better off learning it last. Otherwise you won’t bother learning much more.
Very smart adults often seem unusually innocent, and I don’t think this is a coincidence. I think they’ve deliberately avoided learning about certain things. Certainly I do. I used to think I wanted to know everything. Now I know I don’t.
Indeed.
