Frankly Put: Where The Childhood Wonder Goes
Some like to say that there is a spark in every child. Some would go as far as to call it childhood wonder—that extra spice to life—a sort of je nais se quoi to this thing we call the circle of life that adds a bump to every step and a smile to every curiosity.
The same “some” would go as far as to say that adulthood is the consistent plucking of feathers off the wings that make us feel like Icarus. I do not think it is far-fetched to question whether it is to protect us from flying too close to the sun or to stunt the dreams we once so fondly held. True to it there is a yearly payment written out on a reality check that drives that child-like wonder further and further down the pipeline; commonly in union with hopes and dreams.
It weathers the paint more than is likeable and it is more difficult than we think to try and maintain the glossiness of it all. Adulthood is painted all doom and gloom and it might be a surprise that it doesn’t just end at the door. As the common saying goes “I didn’t know rock bottom had a basement.” Perhaps we let reality get the better of us and we stopped dreaming. We packed these little firecracker wishes and hopes into our shoe boxes and hid them under our beds. Before we knew it we outgrew them and they failed to carry forward with us.
There are two schools of thought here — a bid to keep our heads in the clouds. One, delay growing up. Grow old in all the ways that are way out of your control but savour the very taste of youth down to its very last drop before the clock strikes 12 and reality comes a-knocking. Two, pack this youth in your finest bottle and store it in the cellar for the day you will be old enough to drink it and enjoy its maturity — or lack thereof. They often find themselves at loggerheads I feel.
It’s hard to join Peter Pan in the deluded fantasy that one day the child state we exist in wouldn’t come to an end. It’s difficult in this generation sometimes to take the advice “just be a kid.” True, our guardians do their best to give us the environment to hold on to that belief but I think world events have sidestepped the protocols observed and reality is sipping through the walls of schools and killing fantasies before they had the chance to mature. A lot of children these days have a tempered answer to what they dream to be. A taste of realism that school compositions are watered down with.
It’s just as difficult to “save the nice things for a special day.” It’s not as easy as saying I will put these dreams on hold for just a bit and when I find the capacity to, I will find my way back to them. Throw a stone and you will for sure hit someone who has put something on hold trying to set up the life they would need to have it. Whether it is taking that soul-sucking job to pay for the secondary option and the funding just is never enough. Whether it’s taking that stepping stone opportunity and getting stuck there because the safety of it is more assuring than the uncertainty of developing it. Sticking to the “safe” option of a partner or friend because it’s easier on the heart to settle than to live off hope that one day these things will pay off. All together plagued by the thought “What if it isn’t worth the risk?”
Life comes at you fast. I don’t know if our reflexes are ever quick enough to shift gears in making that decision before it is made for us. Lucky are the few who get to walk up to the plate for another turn at this swing. Most are just stuck trying to make the best out of the hand they have been dealt and it’s not the easiest game here. Someone recently asked me what it’s like “out there” after graduating school and I couldn’t bring myself to lie. However, the look on their face was one to make me scrape the bottom of the barrel for some motivation to spark they hope in their hearts. Maybe that’s the lantern we must hold. Some are lucky enough to have fuel that lights their way whilst others are stumbling through with fumes in the tank counting the next steps to darkness.
Still, I like to think I live in a world where childhood wonder is not a dessert served at the end of a full course of suffering. It isn’t a lucky find amongst the menu of dishes. It’s more the little surprises we hide in expectations. It manifests in the little seasoning that carries forward from the kitchen table to the dining room. I don’t wish to sit belly half-full at the end of life wondering why everything lacks taste. Yes, I’m satiated but life’s a little less passionate. It’s interesting though, how my algorithm keeps bringing up this profile run by a man who “makes dreams a reality”. He walks up to people, asks them what their dream is and what it would take to get them there.
I wonder how many times we ask the same of ourselves. Maybe we will learn to make this a compass for ourselves in this search of where childhood wonder goes… to put it Frankly.
