Tonight's movie was a cool mystery with a science fiction-based time-travel premise and a father-son-relationship sub-plot. So it's not surprising that we started the discussion with Question #5, tackling the issue of how close we have been to our parents and/or children. Several participants said they had never had a chance to be very close emotionally with one or both of their parents. However, I found it exciting that each of them said that they had set up a relationship with their kids where their kids could ask them almost anything, and where they all shared the emotions, events and aspirations of their lives. I like the idea that we're all making the world a better place, generation to generation.
We also talked about how to distinguish between helpful support and harmful support (Questions 8 & 9), especially when it relates to raising kids and trying to decide when to provide emotional and financial support and when to use "tough love" and STOP providing emotional and/or financial support. It seemed like each situation was unique, with different solutions working in each situation.
We also tackled Questions 1 & 6, and several people shared some quite painful times in their lives when they felt they made mistakes that they would change now if they had the chance. Ironically, though, everyone also mentioned that they had learned and grown from the mistakes they made, and so good things came out of those difficult circumstances.
A couple of people also described situations where they were glad they didn't know at the time how truly grateful some of the people in their life were (Question #2), because if they had known they would have felt self-conscious and responsible for the other's welfare, and would have had a harder time handling the situation wisely and dispassionately.
Then as midnight approached we started getting increasingly silly, and began talking about how we felt about the naked people we've seen in public. Go figure.
Here are the questions: