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agnes bookbinder

non sequitur
  • shorts
    • crumbsnatcher (short film)
    • the wandering eye (une chienne andalouse)
  • talking to people about things they love
  • poems
    • cedar
    • ballade d'une francophile
    • sonic sonnet
    • dialogue in verse between god and man
    • i will sleep until i wake up
    • the downside for poets who toil in the darkness
    • the death & rebirth of empathy
    • two herons
    • a light drizzle
    • the lesson in grasses
    • says simon cowell (a villanelle)
    • five small children, painted well
    • that's rich
    • after lear
    • dietary restrictions
    • put the babies back to work
    • the cynic’s valentine
    • a poetry limerick
  • stories
    • lost articles
    • alexander in midair
    • wish list
    • melvin the destroyer
    • great aunt bertha fussbudget's mirthless legacy: part one
    • one rainy night, soon
    • yours truly, the canary
    • last supper at the pie emporium
  • visions
  • other words (blog posts)
  • things & stuff (blogs 2016-2018)
  • bio
Screen Shot 2018-02-25 at 10.14.25 PM.png

we are all children

February 26, 2018

Do you feel frequently embarrassed? Unsure? Tentative?

Maybe you're confident? Knowledgeable? Authoritative?

Regardless, here is a little known truth: we are all still kids inside. 

Our childhoods form who we are. We grow up, but in the end, it's all still in there. Some of us learn to approach the world with caution. Others of us learn that we had our turn at the bottom of the pecking order, and now it's our turn to be boss because of chronological order and the Way Things Are. Some of us say, screw it, let's do this!

What we have, and what actual children lack, is experience. 

Other than that? None of us have any idea what the hell we're doing. In some ways, we know less than children because we think we know what we're doing. There is an actual experiment that I will spare you the citation for (unless you want it, and then, I'm happy to share) in which five-year-olds outperformed adults on a cognitive task.

With experience, we lose our ability to consider things differently.

Some people see this as a relief --those'd be your pecking order types. "My turn! Nothing changes because I waited too damn long for this!" they say in their suits borrowed from their parents.

Some people see this as terrifying.

Some people are terribly well-adjusted and see it as an adventure.

But we are all still the children we were with a few years of additional mileage and wear-and-tear tacked on. 

Things get a lot easier when you realize that we are all still children, all of us, and the danger is forgetting that in our desire to be adults. No one has all the answers. We continue to have ingenuity and playfulness in there.

So go out, have fun, and make peace with that kid inside. And listen to the actual children from time to time when they have an idea --consider it instead of dismissing it out of hand.

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