Toys
“And so, dear Stefano, I will give you guns. And I will teach you to play extremely complicated wars, where the truth will never be entirely on one side. You will release a lot of energy in your young years, and your ideas may be a bit confused, but slowly you will develop some convictions. Then, when you are grown up, you will believe that it was all a fairy tale: little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, the guns, the cannons, single combat, the witch and the seven dwarfs, armies against armies. But if by chance, when you are grown up, the monstrous characters of your childish dreams persist, witches, trolls, armies, bombs, compulsory military service, perhaps, having gained a critical attitude toward fairy tales, you will learn to live and criticize reality.”
[Text from Misreadings. More about Eco's Diario Minimo here.]