Many things diminish as you grow out of childhood. Childhood is the unfiltered you. The pure wants, the joys, the sorrows, the selfishness, and aggression are clean and expressed 100 percent. The rest of your life (I'll use "your" in this context to refer to "all of us"), is a matter of herding and wrangling and controlling the primitive surge of emotions and desires.
Wasn't it cool when we could just grab the crayon out of little sister's hand when our project required yellow? Wasn't it satisfying at the age of 4 to yell out to your mom "I hate you!" and get away with it? To sing out loud, to punch your friend Nick in the face, to violently disagree with Daddy when it was time to go to bed to eat your corn to tie your shoes to shut...your...mouth?
Adulthood is about self-control--not to say what is on your mind to your boss or your spouse, not to sock the guy in front of you who is making a left turn without signaling, not to argue with the umpire who calls you out even though you beat the throw by a foot, not to call your neighbor a moron when he or she is behaving like one.
Is adulthood nothing more or less an ever-tightening noose of repression?
There are mitigating circumstances--you do tend to get wiser and more adept with age, and driving cool cars and drinking cold martinis are decent benefits. But they hardly compensate for the lost freedom of childhood, which excuses behaviors that are innately human yet must be effectively stifled to maintain a civilized coexistence.
By now, however, I've kinda forgotten what real freedom is like, locked into behaviors and mindsets that make me a responsible adult. It's tragic and unfulfilling in many ways. But then, at age 61, could I truly handle the intensity of a renewed childhood?
Wasn't it cool when we could just grab the crayon out of little sister's hand when our project required yellow? Wasn't it satisfying at the age of 4 to yell out to your mom "I hate you!" and get away with it? To sing out loud, to punch your friend Nick in the face, to violently disagree with Daddy when it was time to go to bed to eat your corn to tie your shoes to shut...your...mouth?
Adulthood is about self-control--not to say what is on your mind to your boss or your spouse, not to sock the guy in front of you who is making a left turn without signaling, not to argue with the umpire who calls you out even though you beat the throw by a foot, not to call your neighbor a moron when he or she is behaving like one.
Is adulthood nothing more or less an ever-tightening noose of repression?
There are mitigating circumstances--you do tend to get wiser and more adept with age, and driving cool cars and drinking cold martinis are decent benefits. But they hardly compensate for the lost freedom of childhood, which excuses behaviors that are innately human yet must be effectively stifled to maintain a civilized coexistence.
By now, however, I've kinda forgotten what real freedom is like, locked into behaviors and mindsets that make me a responsible adult. It's tragic and unfulfilling in many ways. But then, at age 61, could I truly handle the intensity of a renewed childhood?
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