I agree that Dave’s “What are five things I don’t know about myself” is more interesting than “Five things you don’t know about me”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Hell, any meme in a storm, in these root-withering Latter Days of Blog.
So here:
- I don’t know if my growing suspicion that reproducing is in some important senses what we are for, and my feeling that my reluctance to do so has been to say ‘no’ to life (something I swore decades ago I would never do) are enough to overcome my bowel-loosening terror (and unusually for me, I do not exaggerate for effect, here) at the very idea of having children. Or if they should.
- I don’t know if the childhood demons I thought I’d exorcised long ago have been defeated as completely as I had hoped.
- I don’t know if I’m a good man, or just a (garden variety enlightened) selfish one with people skills. I’m not sure what it means to be a good man, anymore.
- I don’t know if I’ll ever write the things I’ve always wanted to.
- I am 41 years old, and I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life.
You know: It is possible to be both good and selfish at times.
Aye.
I’m all of twenty-five, and I’ve vague plans on starting a family in the next decade or so. Because I know lots of people I respect who’ve done so, and enjoyed doing so, maybe not immediately, but in the fullness of time.
You’re 41, you and SWMBO are in a decent material situation, you’ll probably contribute distinctly more enlightened spawn to the world than some Pentecostal in Texas or Nigeria. I don’t see the problem.