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Childhood. What a beautiful, beautiful thing. The wish that one could pertain their childhood seems to be an omnipresent one; a wish that contains all the endless hopes and dreams of a race that has lost it's way through time and space.
Whether this be an argument of nature vs nurture, or something far more spiritual than that, I will hope to delve into it.
There is something about innocence that appeals to every human being. Purity of the mind, a will to accept all people as they are; these are the things that flee from us as we grow older and become acustomed to the wills of the world around us. As children, all we could think of was getting older and doing cooler things (and, of course, these thoughts only permeated our mind after we had watched such horrid things as T.V. and movies, or experienced a day with a high schooler or lifetime idol), and now, as adults or adolescents, all we want is to go back to simpler times.
Childhood is a simple thing. There is not anything more simple. I follow the motto that "Life is to complex, and this is something that needs to be seen to." Simply put, life is too complex. Why should we have to care about the latest fashions? Should what an actor has done to themselves really matter to me? (or anyone, for that matter?) Why do I have to fight so hard to give up values I hold so dear in order to become something that I don't want to be? Do I really have to work all my life in order to be happy?
The world is big to a child. As the child grows, the world around it does something strange; the world tells the child that it is actually smaller than it is. That it is A-OK to find a niche in society and sit there. There is a term for water when it sits. Stagnant, I believe. I think that we're meant to be like water--flowing--not stagnant. If one could only open there eyes and see that, as we grow, the world does not become smaller! It becomes bigger, oh so bigger, with so many things to see and do. . .so many people to talk to!
What we're doing to our children wrong. I've seen children wondering around with cellphones (and the attitudes that accompany them) and saying things I didn't say till my Sophmore year in high school! Parenting is a part of this.
Parents are becoming ever more lazy in their job. This is something we all have to live with, and always have had to live with. Now, more so in such startling numbers.
I can go on forever about what I don't like about parenting or how children are being raised; I can go on forever about how the world needs to be fixed and how things are wrong. . .but why? Why be such a pessimist? The show must go on. . ..
Childhood is something we should carry with us our whole lives. It would be wrong not to. With childhood and good parenting comes warm memories of the seasons--of smells and tastes--and of fun had at places like lakes or plains. Our childhood is what we are, and we should not forget that. Without it, we are incomplete beings (only drones among the endless waves of work). Childhood is truly, I think, what spawns a soul--what gives us the ability to smile and love--and what gives us our values and beliefs.
Those of us who can remain children even in a life that is too complex for us, too large for us, and most definitely too fast for us, can find some sort of solace or peace among this fact. If we can be children while we are adults, then we have found a sort of happiness and tool that reaches far beyond the constraints of the real world.
So! I think we should all retain our childhood--that we should be happy, fun, and innocent among other people; that we should show them what it is like to not care.
Salaam~
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