A Letter to Byron
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I'd like to share an English Comp. assignment with you...

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(warning: lazy copy-paste:)
Journal Assignment for week of 3/21-3/25
“A Birthday Letter to Byron”

Well, this was originally an in-class writing activity planned for March 11, Byron’s birthday, but since we didn’t have time to do it, I’ll now give it to you as a journal assignment. Here’s what I want you to do, and it is simple enough- Write a letter to my son, a birthday letter, that he will read when he is, like most of you, 18 and a freshman in college. You can offer him advice, tell him what wisdom you have acquired thus far in your life, or speculate on what life will be like for him in 13 years. Or, whatever- you can tell him his mother is completely insane if you want, but he’ll probably be well aware of that by the time he reads it. As usual, you have great creative license here.

You might consider a few things, however- what tone of voice should you be using? Who is your audience- an 18 year old boy, 13 years in the future. How will that affect what you write and how you write it?

This is a silly little journal assignment, and I don’t expect you to take a terrible amount of time on it. In class you would only have had 15 minutes, so don’t worry over it too much. As usual, the point is to get you writing coherently. 

Journals are due at the end of this week- Friday, March 25. Be sure to bring it to class or make an arrangement with me.

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My very heartfelt response:...

A Letter To Byron

   First off--I'd like to say that this is anything but a silly assignment. I think it's a brilliant use of your teacher position--Way to exploit your students! ; ) (yes, winky face included and all)
   Motherhood is one of my favorite things about this crazy circus we call Life, and I think about it often and hold the title in the highest regard.

   Dear Byron,
     The year is 2018. According to Aztec and Mayan calendars, civilization as we know it here and now in 2005 has ended already, six years ago. O.o Crazy. I have no idea what kind of world you've grown up in thusfar. My only hope is that oil and politics haven't completely ruined everything for your generation.
   But a few seeds of wisdom still hold true. I hae complete and utter faith in this.
   "Do unto others that which you wish for yourself." The golden rule. The eleventh commandment. Karma. Just about every religion since the beginning of time has come to understand that what goes around comes around. You may not get rich quick or have as many lovers as Hugh Heffner, but you'll receive kindness and shelter and comfort and love if this is what you have to offer others. Even in the post-apocolyptic world I imagine the year 2018 to be, I imagine that, even with more intensity, sharing the good things you have to offer will only result in others being eager to share with you.
   Do NOT become attatched. To anything. Live only in this very moment. You can't physically do otherwise. To let yourself become attatched to anything--from your favorite keychain to your own mother--only opens you up for a world of pain once those things inevitably leave your life. Enjoy everything you have only in the moment that you have them. Let go.
   You can't live in the past--it's only memory--electric impulses in your brain. And it's only 7% accurate anyway. You can't live in the future--it's only imagination and depends entirely on the mind-boggling network of actions that the other 6 trillion people on this planet have yet to live out. The only moment that exists is
-----------------> This One. <-------------------
   Of all the things to not be attatched to, don't be attatched to expectations or assumptions. Again, these things exist only as electric impulses in your brain.
   Read between the lines. Don't believe anything you're told--not even the rubbish in this very letter--unless it rings true first in your own heart. You can't be informed of something you don't already believe.
   Embrace chaos and change. Without the existance of these things, there is no such thing as order or progress. All things (as far as metaphysical research has proven thusfar) exist only with and in equal
proportions to, their opposites.
   All people exist completely independently of yourself, off on their own reality trips, down their own
rabbit holes. This is why there is no such thing as right or wrong or true or false. Everyone believes
something different. Try to understand as many people as you can.
            Create. Never stop creating.
-Leah Hunczak
2005

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