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But who can live looking such grim truths straight in the face every day for eternity? Not me. Not anymore. And so I’ve created, in this school, a kind of greenhouse: a lovely, if artificial, place of perennial bloom and beauty where I can live in peace, unheeding of the blowing winter storms outside. For a long time, I troubled myself with all the pain and suffering in the world. I struggled too long against the riptide of reality to the point of exhaustion, to drowning. What did it gain me or anyone? Nothing. Swim with the tide, not against, they say. Busy yourself in your greenhouse, remain untroubled, avoid becoming attached to any one blossom because the day comes when every flower fades, and then it must be cut off, tossed outside, and forgotten.
For this kind of lovely but detached existence, a preschool is really ideal. After all, can anything be more explicitly transient than early childhood? “Preschool is a line drive, a Slip ’N Slide, a mad dash to something else. Enjoy, but do not get attached. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow it all slips away to puberty and acne and angst. Once it’s gone, forget it. New students are at the door, and we begin again.
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