I just spent a couple of days with my niece, nephew, and my nephew's wife. I have always felt close to my nephew and that relationship feels like it has developed distance over the years. I felt disconnected from my niece until she grew up and moved to Korea to teach English. It was odd, then, to spend the weekend with the two of them. That confluence of change left me feeling quite confused and, in an odd way, lonely.
So much in life happens and you can't really communicate it. Everything seems so complicated; there are all the contributing factors which are, regardless of what anyone else says, unique to you and that moment, that experience, that perspective. Everything is flavoured by the family, as well. Personality, character, and physical characteristics travel in a family. You can see your brother and your mother in your cousins and others.
I wish I could say to them, my nieces and nephew, that they should embrace the joys and sorrows with equal enthusiasm. But, I don't know how to say that in a meaningful way. There are too many examples in my family of people who have taken that concept and ended up as so much flotsam on the beach of life. There is a lot of mental illness in my family and I don't know how common it is, but if I were a generation younger, I'd be seriously worried.
The effort it takes now to achieve anything in life seems far greater than in my parents' generation. Perhaps this is untrue, but I see that advantages that even I had are gone, cut away in the frantic streamlining and cost-cutting spree of the past twenty years (or more). By becoming a less community-minded culture (here in North America), we're creating a division that prevents individuals from changing their circumstances by rising. It is so much easier to fail and fall. There are fewer safety nets and a greater sense of predestination. There is less of a sense that we all rise and fall together; perhaps my perception is tainted by my own experience and by my current location. I rose from poverty not just by the dint of my own effort, but by a communal sense that provided the rungs in the ladder I used. There are those who cannot climb even with assistance but that is not a good reason for removing all assistance from the realm. Relying solely on the contributions of non-governmental agencies does not provide the same, leavened leg-up that a well-reasoned and well-funded government-run assistance program.
Aside from this rather deep, mind-bending aspect of the visit, we had a blast. If you get to Victoria, check out Miniature World. I was, at first, a bit shy about asking to go, but everyone seemed quite taken with the idea. We admired the handy work, the complexity, and the shear magnitude of the obsession that produced the small museum of miniatures. The interactive bits were delightful and I was just a little sad that the fire department regulations had put an end to the miniature saw mill action. The model is still there, but the workings are not activated. We wondered if the creator had used this tiny sawmill to create the boards for some of the other displays. The doll houses seemed a bit uneven in execution, especially compared to the dioramas. I want to go back with a decent camera, a King Kong doll, and a Godzilla figurine so I can act out and capture it in its full glory.