Commemoration of past events is understandable, but insistence on tradition based on myth is baffling,

.. meditation is in being even more present, not absent.  It is in more thinking and not blanking out thoughts.  It is gaining peace not by not thinking, but by thinking rightly.  It results in fullness and not emptiness of the mind.

Does it mean one big happy family?  Not really.  Just like any biological family, it is by no means perfect.  Like everywhere else in the world, full of flawed people who are often self-centred.  It is good we’re not kept together because we’re happy with one another (if it is, then it won’t last very long, would it?), but by something that runs much deeper and stronger.

It is easier to judge your own family, as it is more accurate?  May be true in one sense, because you may see ugliness in them that outsiders do not see.  So it’s no surprise if you’re not impressed by them as others would be, or when you lose patience with them.

the captain spoke, ‘We do this (trip) not to escape reality, but to not let reality escape us.’