When we find ourselves in times of change and turmoil and disruption I always return back to philosophy.
There is a school of thought that believes that all primary school children should be taught philosophy so that they can find their place in the world. It doesn’t fit with the STEM mentality that we have in this country about education but I think, looking at the rise in child mental health issues we are getting something wrong somewhere.
Another time of huge uncertainty, change, excitement and hope was the turn of the millennium in 1999, and in the summer of 1999 a female journalist for the Chicago Tribune newspaper wrote a column (that she wrote three times a week) about the advise that she’d like to give to young people.
This was picked up after it went viral (in the early days of the internet) by an Australian film director called Baz Luhrmann.
The results were a spoken word song that was released at the end of 1999 that you can view here.
The full story of Mary Schmich’s column is here and the Wikipedia page about the song is here if you want to look into it.
It sits in many playlists on my Apple Music and it never ceases to inspire me and bring me back to earth about what’s important.
If you’ve heard it before you’ll recognise it and I’m sure it will make you smile, it reached No.1 in the UK charts (but funnily enough nowhere else in the world) if you haven’t heard it before I think it’s worth listening to and will not be a waste of your time, there will definitely be something in there that will touch your heart.
Good luck, it will all be alright on the other side of this we will just be a little different but not necessarily in a bad way.
Blog Post Number - 2349
Leave a comment