The most precious resource is agency

Thanks for sharing. Some of what that article outlines resonates with me, and reflecting on what I see today, it does seem odd that there aren't as many children out on bicycles. However, I also was able to have the same freedoms of being able to bike around as a child (without parental supervision) in a car-centric setting. That may be because I lived in the suburbs and not some very dense urban center, but my point is it doesn't have to be a binary choice.

As an adult, the type of agency I derive from cars is slightly different. It's about being able to go where I want quickly, without the waiting times of public transit or slow speeds of a bicycle. It's about being able to put that faster travel time to use, by spending the new free time on other activities. For example I can run errands, manage children, meet with a friend, and go to the movies all in one day thanks to the magic of a personal car. And when I go out of town, a car lets me go wherever I want with nearly endless freedom only limited by availability of road infrastructure, while moving the cargo (and people) I want with me at those destinations.

Yes, of course.

School that our western society has created quite recently exists for the purpose of keeping children off the labor market.

> It seems that the more you ask of people, and the more you have them do, the more they are able to later do on their own.

This is almost so self-evident as to be banal… and yet this fundamental observation about humans is roundly ignored and outright rejected by most institutions charged with educating our children.

This essay feels like it could’ve come straight from John Holt or John Taylor Gatto—highly recommended.

One of the biggest tragedies isn't just that the childhood is wasted, but that many people never learn to have agency once it is available. I'm not saying you need to start your own business or anything like that, but it seems like most people live their lives never questioning the scripts that are given to them.

The basic life script we all seem to have in western society seems pretty awful when you think critically about it. Essentially we waste all out vitality and youth making other people rich, so that one day when we're old and infirm, we can finally do the things we like with the short time we have left. I think most of us never even think about it because it's too bleak of a reality. I feel somewhat fortunate in that the work I do is something I would generally enjoy doing even if I wasn't being paid for it, but I still have a nagging fear that what I could be is much more than what I am yet I lack the proper tools and perspectives to become that person (and I don't think that just starting my own business, like a lot of people here want to do, is really sufficient, it's just a small part of inventing your own life script).

My first child is due any day now and I’ve been thinking a lot about the central problems presented in this article. But I don’t know what to do about them. Should I keep my son home with me, allocate mornings to academics and afternoons to more practical endeavors? Should I teach him to cook? To garden? To build cabinets? To train a dog? To do his taxes? Should I send him to public school but supplement his learning with what I believe he should learn, topics like statistics and probability and finance? Should I teach him Latin? JavaScript?

I personally feel like I am capable of providing an “agentic” education but I almost certainly won’t have the time nor the persuasive powers to convince a (hopefully) rebellious 7 year old that, say, grammar matters and gardening is dope. Seeking any suggestions.