Discernment
Over the course of my years, I have realised that there is a gradual progression with how one experiences life. I've heard it said time and time again by people my age and older that they appreciate the innocence of children, how they wish they could jump back to some age way back then and remember life. As children, we see the world through very rosy spectacles. All of the sharp corners of our abstract playground are covered with several inches of Nerf padding, and we rarely experience pain... and when we do, it is rarely of the permanent variety.
Time passes, and expectations are soon placed upon us. Society seems to expect children to, one day, "grow up" into men and women. In turn, almost in consequence of, we are supposed to abandon our identity as children during the time of our adult years. Many of us make promises to ourselves that we're not going to buy into that hogwash, that we're going to keep on being kids--living in our "first childhood"--forever. Yet the peer pressure of society to conform to its norms is extremely intense, and that playfulness is driving from us as, slowly but surely, society takes away the Nerf padding and reveals to us that we truly must be cautious individuals. Playing around with such mature equipment could lead to significant injuries of which we couldn't even fathom as children.
Let's face facts: We live in a particularly harsh world. Not only is there a huge gap in understanding between the elderly generation and the more youthful generations, but there is also a very dog-eat-dog mentality that seems to be consuming the world. Betrayal and lies run rampant, friendships are torn apart and marriages are dissolved all too frequently, and greed and selfishness are corrupting our culture. All of this causes people--who inherently dislike pain--to slowly close their hearts to the world because of society's sharpness, and this is inevitably the true cause for the disappearance of all our safety equipment in the Game of Life.
Like the many, I had vowed to myself that I would not succumb to the pressures of the world to conform into what they wished of me. I'm not that sort of man; I revel in being silly and inventing fantasy. The straight man in a suit, while a part of me, is not the only part of me... yet I let it dictate my life. I actually wondered to myself once as I was staring at a small grove of trees why I was not appreciating the view, whether or not I had violated my promise and lost that childhood innocence... perhaps if I would ever be able to regain that again if my fear of me losing it had actually come to pass. I see how sharp the world is; I see how badly and deeply I can be cut. I didn't want that to happen to me; I began to close my heart. I felt that I had lost my childhood for good.
But classifying the world as a whole into just one of the two categories is like trying to fit a cruise ship into a pencil cup. After all, while a cruise ship inevitably contains machinery that could kill a map without blinking, many would describe other components of it as extremely relaxing--soft space that provides cushion for our body. Life is not something that is simply fair or not, not benevolent nor ruthless, not overly loving nor cruel. Life is life, full of its ups and downs, and both of which are equally as important. It's just the way things work.
What separates the happy from the malcontent in this world is not a matter of determining which people have the most, which people are the most successful, or which people are the winners. What truly separates the two is a simple manner of discernment. The ability to discern those soft spaces amongst all of the truly sharp objects we encounter every day--and then to willingly and without abandon cling to those soft spaces like glue--is nothing more than the what separates the truly mature from the false mature. The ability to care and love other people without condition, to build soft spaces for others, the ability to open your arms and take someone unto them regardless of situation, is the pinnacle achievement mankind can achieve... for every other want, need, or desire eventually reduces to that single measure of success.
As time ever goes on, the negatives in our lives will always continue to multiply. However, discerning the positive from within the negative is what makes it all bearable; after all, it's always seeing the positive that made us carefree children. Without the positive, we will all, eventually, wither to zombies, incapable of caring about anyone outside our closed, tight, inner circle.
"We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." It's never to late to save our youth; don't let it slip away.
Time passes, and expectations are soon placed upon us. Society seems to expect children to, one day, "grow up" into men and women. In turn, almost in consequence of, we are supposed to abandon our identity as children during the time of our adult years. Many of us make promises to ourselves that we're not going to buy into that hogwash, that we're going to keep on being kids--living in our "first childhood"--forever. Yet the peer pressure of society to conform to its norms is extremely intense, and that playfulness is driving from us as, slowly but surely, society takes away the Nerf padding and reveals to us that we truly must be cautious individuals. Playing around with such mature equipment could lead to significant injuries of which we couldn't even fathom as children.
Let's face facts: We live in a particularly harsh world. Not only is there a huge gap in understanding between the elderly generation and the more youthful generations, but there is also a very dog-eat-dog mentality that seems to be consuming the world. Betrayal and lies run rampant, friendships are torn apart and marriages are dissolved all too frequently, and greed and selfishness are corrupting our culture. All of this causes people--who inherently dislike pain--to slowly close their hearts to the world because of society's sharpness, and this is inevitably the true cause for the disappearance of all our safety equipment in the Game of Life.
Like the many, I had vowed to myself that I would not succumb to the pressures of the world to conform into what they wished of me. I'm not that sort of man; I revel in being silly and inventing fantasy. The straight man in a suit, while a part of me, is not the only part of me... yet I let it dictate my life. I actually wondered to myself once as I was staring at a small grove of trees why I was not appreciating the view, whether or not I had violated my promise and lost that childhood innocence... perhaps if I would ever be able to regain that again if my fear of me losing it had actually come to pass. I see how sharp the world is; I see how badly and deeply I can be cut. I didn't want that to happen to me; I began to close my heart. I felt that I had lost my childhood for good.
But classifying the world as a whole into just one of the two categories is like trying to fit a cruise ship into a pencil cup. After all, while a cruise ship inevitably contains machinery that could kill a map without blinking, many would describe other components of it as extremely relaxing--soft space that provides cushion for our body. Life is not something that is simply fair or not, not benevolent nor ruthless, not overly loving nor cruel. Life is life, full of its ups and downs, and both of which are equally as important. It's just the way things work.
What separates the happy from the malcontent in this world is not a matter of determining which people have the most, which people are the most successful, or which people are the winners. What truly separates the two is a simple manner of discernment. The ability to discern those soft spaces amongst all of the truly sharp objects we encounter every day--and then to willingly and without abandon cling to those soft spaces like glue--is nothing more than the what separates the truly mature from the false mature. The ability to care and love other people without condition, to build soft spaces for others, the ability to open your arms and take someone unto them regardless of situation, is the pinnacle achievement mankind can achieve... for every other want, need, or desire eventually reduces to that single measure of success.
As time ever goes on, the negatives in our lives will always continue to multiply. However, discerning the positive from within the negative is what makes it all bearable; after all, it's always seeing the positive that made us carefree children. Without the positive, we will all, eventually, wither to zombies, incapable of caring about anyone outside our closed, tight, inner circle.
"We do not stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." It's never to late to save our youth; don't let it slip away.