How to extend a bright 16-yo boy's horizons beyond heavy rock?
Two of my favorite movies are about music;
%26quot;Amadeus%26quot; is about Mozart.
%26quot;My Dearest Darling%26quot; is about Beethoven.
How ya been?
How to extend a bright 16-yo boy's horizons beyond heavy rock?
Point out he has to get good marks in science to be a sound engineer!
Is he getting good marks in maths and science?
Also point out who pays the bills for his guitar and sound equipment.
Make it a simple equation.
If you want money from us you will have to do some kind of social/ volunteer work and broaden your interests?
Make part of his pocket money or allowance or birthday / xmas gifts vouchers for book and music shops?
Finally he is only 16 he may want to do something completely different six months from now?
sounds like you are an intellectual blue blood. if he accurately fits your description then he is making a conscious choice and using his perspicacious nature allowing him to see into his own contentment, which can be disappointing and frustrating for a person believing in a birthright direction of a life of intellectual snobbery and elitism.
%26quot;heavy rock%26quot; is not some brain dead medium without artistic or intellectual merit. many people have even been able to make an outstanding living from it. this may sound materialistic but base materialism is neccesary to pursue more %26quot;refined pursuits of an academic or social nature. Just ask Bono from the band U2. through his musical success he is able to sit with policy makers on an international level. without his early obssesion with music he would probably just be the smartest guy in the factory. assuming his father is successful in business i would hardly categorize that as a waste of intelligence but merely an application of it in another area.
talk it over with yore best friend or mate that had the same problem'
I don't think it matters so much what you do but the quality of that doing. Can one be engaged with heart, hands and head and relating to life and the present moment even while digging a ditch? If so, then anything one does in life can be done 'meditatively', all can be used as a field for practice. Becoming present and awakened I feel to be the highest aspiration, and any exterior job can be used to do that, it doesn't need any special setting. If there is something you can do, it would be to tell how to be engaged no matter what one does and to encourage/teach daily meditation.
I feel that lessons for ones life are learned no matter the path one chooses physically in regards to exterior work. Genes and upbringing don't make the person, who the spirit is inside, has already determined their path and unique way that they need to challenge themselves. Who are we to question that?
The other thing to encourage would be to follow ones heart and do what one wants to creatively express. If one can live life like that, then it's a 'dream job', it's not like working at all. This is the ideal setting for creative self-expression and further growth. I would encourage any youth to look inside and find what one loves to do, and then to do that, to try it and see what happens. Of course the ability to follow ones heart, grows as you grow, make mistakes and learn. the more you incorporate meditation skills into ones arsenal, the more one can be in tune with what is in ones heart. Also, the biggest mistakes in life can be the greatest teachers. In reality nothing is 'bad', it's our tendency to over-think and judge things that makes things good/bad.
Keep the lines of communication open, that's my best advise, and also to become involved and truly interested in what your grandson is doing. perhaps you could go on a road trip and learn something about it and spend some more time together.
Betsy
By talking %26quot;so well and widely...%26quot; with your grandson, it is entirely possible that he admires you. It is also quite possible that you have been engaging straightforwardly with him over the years, and, if so, you may have told him of your self-assessment of being %26quot;unambitious and undirectional%26quot; [profile-revealing]. Of course, that may provide him with a desire to be uni-directional if he perceived, accurately or inaccurately, that you had some regrets in being undirectional.
What does seem to be clear is that you may be in danger of leaving with him an impression that you think he is wasting his intelligence as you think that his father did. The danger is that he may become more distant from you for his self-preservation of his current passion. Walk with him in his passions. If my son dreamed of being a ski-jumper, I'd take him into that experience, and it may then be, that on his own accord, he abandons or alter his desires. I would not, though, manipulatively do so, by making the circumstances conducive to his failing. He would make up his own mind, but I would have hastened his dream into a reality so that he could make solid experiential judgments about his dream, and if he chose to change, his dream would not have been years in the making while sacrificing other development. Music and sound are so solidly within the human spirit. Walk with him in his passions.
