An email from an old friend. He’s in the throes of raising an 11-year old daughter – amazed by the pure and vital energy of childhood – and asks, “why have we lost this as adults…?”
My answer would be, we haven’t lost this, but we’ve left this. We’ve left this for a set of distractions, protections & consequences that effectively annihilate our chances of returning to the place of innocence, possibility and magic that we knew as children.
As a child, I always knew there was something suspicious, inauthentic and dangerous about the adult character in general. We all know a lot as children, and have access to an amazing range of “emotional intelligence” – intuitive, perceptive and creative capabilities. We sense and live in the spontaneous and ongoing beauty of childhood; we don’t understand or comprehend the “hardening” that has masked and throttled the authority figures around us.
As we grow older, we silently, agreeably adopt and adapt – internalizing all the subtle toxicities and poisons that are handed to us on silver platters: ego, emotional suppression, material obsession, power acquisition & manipulation, playing the proper game and saying the proper words at the proper time – in the proper tone of voice. We learn to obey the Kings of the Adult Architecture: bosses, families, spouses, preachers, pundits and obligations … all at the cost of our own soul.
My own personal journey into Adulthood was interrupted by a “side-trip” into the Land of Self-Knowledge. A side-trip which became the Journey of Life Itself. All the other “main trips” eventually panned out as distractions and misadventures; the subtle and frail voice that pulled me into the heart of Knowing Self, became the most powerful, beautiful, joyful and insightful voice in my being.
Part of the process of Knowing Self seemed to be the reconnection and resurrection of the lost inner child, that – it turns out – is really “me”, after all. The “sweet part” of us, it turns out, is still very much alive, and simply waits like a long lost seed, in the deepest cavern of our hearts, for springtime to return.
But, yes, life presents the challenge of feeling somewhat unique and alone in your “child-craft”; your innocence, beauty and magic seek others to play with – others to share the innate beauty of life with – but, alas, such companions are few and far-between. Most so-called “adults” are busy with the concern of the “adult world” – politics, money, relationship frustrations, sarcasm, jadedness and various mixes of toxic distraction and approved anesthetics.
It does make you value what you do have: access to your own inner song. It makes you value the few companions in life who can indeed share your hearts’ journeys. It makes those moments of play, delight, rainbow-watching, flower-sniffing …. all that much more precious, fragile, fragrant and delicious. And, last but not least: it makes you savor your True Companion, the inner friend you’ve known all along, the one who has been and will be with you every step of the way.
So, the celebration of Eternal Childhood seems to be where it’s at for me.
Sorry, other stuff bores me.
I just don’t have the time be be “grown up” anymore.
The field of life awaits, and it’s brilliant with a million colored flowers.