Maybe life just is—one finds oneself alive—some of us get to live longer than others of us do. And that’s my other thought that makes not having kids seem OK—it’s not the case that all adults have same experiences. We diverge, from our high school peers or college peers or any other peers. Some of us won’t marry, some won’t have kids, and that’s OK, you know. You don’t have to do anything—my dad died suddenly, never had to suffer illness like Charlie did. Which is why it’s ignorant of me to think [my cousin] could benefit from this bad experience: #1, bad experiences are sometimes just bad—we may learn from them, but we don’t need to seek these experiences out, and #2, sometimes we don’t learn. Sometimes stressful situations get worse, not better.
[From journal of Mon. 2 Jan. 2012, Journal 152, page 26-7]
MonkeyMoonMachine 