The Importance of Being Child Like
I've seen to many people dismiss things as being childish or saying something like , "Oh I couldn't do that, that is for children." They do not understand how an adult could enjoy reading a Harry Potter book or riding the bumper cars at the amusement park. These people have no memory of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland. Their world views are serious. Their time is ever so precious. (Get the little Alice in Wonderland Ever so bit? Good eh?) The fun in their lives can never really be termed joyful. They may occasionally be content. Perhaps they can force a sardonic smile. They forgot what it is like to see the world all knew. They forget what it is like to have hope and the very simple ambition of having a good time.
To some extant these are also the people who never like children, who grow angry when their space is invaded with a child. They see children not as bringers of joy and wonder but rather as burdens to be tolerated or carriers of filth and disease not unlike rodents.
The best authors and poets, the ones with the most talent for detail and voice can look back to their childhood and pull that vision into the present in such a way that it calls to the reader and causes him or her to remember their own youth. The best of these at least in my experience is Dylan Thomas. He has many collections of prose and poetry though most are probably only familiar, and vaguely at best, with his poem Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. His most widely popular prose would almost have to be A Child's Christmas in Wales. Thomas is able to take you back to the Wales of his childhood. You can see the area. You can hear the people. You know what it means to be part of Swansea at last for that brief period of time. At the same time you remember what its like to look at the world like a ten year old, what it was like to be part of a club or a secret society to tease a friend about a girl or why it was you pulled Susies hair. Every time I start to forget what it was like to see the world as my future, I look to Thomas for a reminder.
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To some extant these are also the people who never like children, who grow angry when their space is invaded with a child. They see children not as bringers of joy and wonder but rather as burdens to be tolerated or carriers of filth and disease not unlike rodents.
The best authors and poets, the ones with the most talent for detail and voice can look back to their childhood and pull that vision into the present in such a way that it calls to the reader and causes him or her to remember their own youth. The best of these at least in my experience is Dylan Thomas. He has many collections of prose and poetry though most are probably only familiar, and vaguely at best, with his poem Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night. His most widely popular prose would almost have to be A Child's Christmas in Wales. Thomas is able to take you back to the Wales of his childhood. You can see the area. You can hear the people. You know what it means to be part of Swansea at last for that brief period of time. At the same time you remember what its like to look at the world like a ten year old, what it was like to be part of a club or a secret society to tease a friend about a girl or why it was you pulled Susies hair. Every time I start to forget what it was like to see the world as my future, I look to Thomas for a reminder.
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posted by Rich Rosenthal II at 11:22 PM
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