"What's the matter mate, you have an unhappy childhood?" -The Hustle
Part I
That line made me put into perspective our own lives. After watching the show Criminal Minds as well I realized many criminals have been "made" through years of childhood abuse. Probably the same is true for many wealthy men "made" by the best schooling and supportive parents. But maybe the term "made" like a toaster on a factory conveyor belt isn't the whole story, and maybe it just increases the probability of a certain result.
When you put it in such simple terms as "unhappy childhood" like you saw a sad movie-- so you cried. It makes it seem utterly foolish for those people who had a crappy beginning to lash out at the world later in life. It's like... we're all searching for a reason to do whatever we choose to do in this world, and because there's an easy reason to do violence (reason being: because it's been done to us) why not pick it? How simple can you be to just go with the flow wherever the waves of the ocean take you. It's like flying a plane where you've been given the captains seat as the plane's steering wheel was pre-directed towards the ground... why not let it go and crash?
Aside from your own value of life, you should realize that if you do that then you are just a piece in a chain of dominoes that has been started (probably by your father's father's father with years of abuse)(or mother) and all you're doing is continuing the cycle. In fact, the only time you should really just "go with the flow" and continue your life's natural course of chain reactions is if by some grace of supreme cosmos luck, everything is going exactly the way you'd like already. For everyone else, you need to make your own luck, figure out your own destined path, and accept early on that the first shoe you fit on at the shoe store probably isn't the best choice for your feet.
Part II
So: if you shouldn't be influenced by everything in your life, even the parts that hit you the hardest, should you just shut the world out completely? If your mind is like a filter and you shouldn't leave huge holes for everything to get in, and you shouldn't close it completely, how do you decide what information and influences to take in, and what to reject?
It's actually a two step process: 1. Do what activities you can really enjoy/get lost in, 2. do what's necessary to ensure you can do as much of those activities as much as possible. Set your filter towards those two goals. Whatever you consider to be those activities, consider my belief: "Money makes life possible, Friends make it worth it."
If you liked this, I'd also recommend mind TRIP, Why You Choose to Get Angry, and The Essence of "US"