You know what my problem is? Don’t answer that. Let me tell you what my perceived problem is—I am a man with a boy’s mind. I actually have no real problem with being a child at heart, if you will allow me that cliche. I respect and nurture the imagination, dreams and reasoning of a child-like mind. Yes, yes—it’s all very romantic.
The problems lies not in having a child-like mind, but—as a man—living up to all the thoughts of a child. I don’t know why, but this memory just popped into my head. I think in grade 3, we were having some kind of class room contest of who could think of words that are one word, but actually two words—like onto, into, etc (I actually can’t think of others). And I said “GOTO!” The teacher paused and said Good one, Rhett! But that’s not actually correct. It’s go to. And some smarter (anal retentive jerk 8 year olds) students protested, as children do when injustice occurs (no matter how small). But the teacher reaffirmed that I was correct. No need to crush the dreams of an 8 year old, I am sure she thought.
(Funny side story, I ended up working (later in life) with the daughters of my third grade teacher (and they were pretty cute.))
Why did I tell you that memory? Because that sort of error is allowable when you are 8. But that shit would not fly now. When you are 8, you can believe you will be a fireman and no one will question that. When you are 26 you have to deal with how difficult it actually is to be a fireman. And that sucks.
So my problem is that in my child-like mind I have a lot of beliefs of what it’s like to be a man (person)—honouarble, integrity, trustworthy, caring, brave, etc—and now, as a man, having to actually live up to those traits and it’s a lot harder than I thought.
And this serves as anecdotal evidence to why people give up their child-like minds in lieu of poisonous modernist/scientific thought—because it’s just so depressing when you don’t live up to what you believe you are. Well, and I think my flow of thought is highly suspect here, I don’t plan on giving up on who I am or want to be, but it’s just a lot harder than I ever imagined. Is all that too obvious? It wasn’t to me.
4 Comments
If you believe in yourself you can be anything you want to be.
Even a fireman.
No way am I gonna be a fireman. Those guys are crazy. (Read: thanks.)
Speaking of two words that are actually two words and not one word, don’t you always wish that people would remember that the word “alot” is actually “a lot”? Sometimes at the end of the semester I get irrationally angry at incorrect spelling. IRRATIONALLY ANGRY, I tell you. I also seem to waste a lot of time commenting on people’s blogs.
Whoa, whoa. Don’t get all angry here. This place is peaceful and full of grammatical and syntax errors.