childhood discoveries
I started drawing again… I forgot how therapeutic it is, even if just scribbles. It reminds me that there are depths to myself I have forgotten, or lost along the way.
How many things we are capable of doing when we are young but that we then forget as we grow older, as we succumb to this ideal of society, of being mature, responsible, of being an adult?
If you do anything today, go explore your childhood talents, and do it with that childish fervour you once had… it still bubbles within us all – we only need listen.
#peace #childhood #growingup #adulthood
One of my most favourite quotes of all time comes from Maya Angelou, 1928-2014:
To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision. Few, if any, survive their teens. Most surrender to the vague but murderous pressure of adult conformity. It becomes easier to die and avoid conflict than to maintain a constant battle with the superior forces of maturity.
– Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
To find out more about this amazing woman, click here.
no filter, no edit 
I agree with alot of this. But it’s important to package this sort of positivity with the promotion of maturity. People who primarily pursue whimsy, as well as weakening themselves, are often drains on their society. As a young boy, I spent a few years on an island, populated mostly by drug addicts and alcoholics.
Those people could do with a bit more maturity and.. I’m sorry for doing this.. Sobriety.
LikeLike
I don’t really get your point – I am simply saying that all of us tend to forget our childhoods because we are forced into what society deems as”mature” and “responsible” lives where we are basically clones of one another, going to work Mon-Fri, pining for the weekend, living in the same sort of houses, and driving the same sort of cars, because that’s “normal”.
People lose their childhood innocence and wonder, and that is sad. They stop taking the time to have fun, in a completely free spirited manner, unfettered by thoughts of others, or of “what others think of them”.
Society as a whole (and I’m working with generalisations here) sees it as more acceptable to drive a car and sit in front of a computer for 8-12 hours a day, than it is to spend an hour or so getting your hands mucky in paint or dirt.
Moreover, a lot of children do end up as drug and alcohol addicts, precisely because they are forced into an “adult” world, where the adults tell them “it’s okay, i can touch you, that’s ‘normal'” or parents are abusing each other domestically, etc. etc., making their kids think it’s “normal”.
Moreover, I do not think my post mentions anything about people who “pursue things on a whimsy” – rediscovering talents that one discovered as a child but was told that “it wasn’t worth [my] time” pursuing because “it wouldn’t get me anywhere” has nothing to do with whimsy… it has to do with a longing to rediscover oneself. If you know whimsical people who are a drain on society because they’re useless with real life, I can relate also. But then, I think Trump and Clinton are delusional and a complete waste of time and money, yet look at the billions being spent on those idiots and that idiotic election.
Finally, I really am struggling with the reason you brought alcohol and drugs into this conversation though… proof that people really interpret the same things completely differently!
…were you in lord of the flies then? Island, young boys… story please!
LikeLike
No, you did not include a denouncement of maturity, but it could certainly be read into that way. Merely stating that you should be careful presenting an idea, as people can run with them.
I mentioned drugs because I associate people who are immature with drugs. Yes, I know, drugs can be used to explore the mind. I also know that they can be used to destroy the mind, and those people are detriments to society. And I don’t care what a druggies excuses are: one of my mother’s many excuses was that daddy touched her. Her repeated abuses of me were her choice – not the result of any possible molestation.
Stories, stories. I was shuffled around the world some, as a kid. I was there 2 years, because my mother was there. My grandmother, thankfully removed me from that environment. While I was there, I endured my mother’s sociopathy. And the village children’s anger at a person of my race having recently killed one of their uncles. I’ve lived a charmed life. I’m afraid my blog has yet to contain the details of that life, but ti will eventually.
LikeLike
Interesting that…
I associate some of the most intelligent people, who hold down awesome jobs and lives in general, with recreational drugs. They are more into those than alcohol, to be fair… for me, personally, alcohol will always be the greater danger. But that’s just a personal opinion based on personal experiences with friends and acquaintances.
Mind you, I do also know a few morons as well, people who take recreational drugs such as smoking pot all day and sitting on their asses waiting for the next unemployment check, for example (though it’s not to say ALL potheads are like this, take me as a counter example), but fortunately I do not know any scag heads (one held a knife up to me once – interesting first meeting with a Glaswegian). Aside from the potheads sitting on their asses all day who I know, there are in fact many others who put a drain on society – namely, those who drink, even while I do include them in my social circle.
Moreover, I consider myself to be a user of some recreational drugs, and I can tell you, I AM ALL HERE! I like to travel the middle path – but I feel that you are describing junkies not people who take recreational drugs, junkies are those who have really lost their way. Yeah, I agree, they are a drain on society – but then I think spending billions on unnecessary arms and nuclear weapons is also a drain on society, but a much larger one. Another drain on society are all the obese people out there – in the UK, do you know who fills the ER every weekend? It’s the alcoholics, and the obese people… they take up most of the NHS resources, and this could all be avoided.
You see? When you state something like “all people who take drugs are a drain on society”, you kind of went off my original point, so I now feel I have the right to go off on a tangent from your original point and sprout off the hundreds of other things that are a drain on society.
This is a weird conversation.
I just wanted people to know that they should remember what it was like to be a child, instead of having children of their own and wondering “what do I do to keep them occupied?” and then handing them an iPad or sitting them in front of the TV – it’s lame. They can’t even remember how they used to just go outside and play… and now the world is “such a dangerous place” by comparison (ahem), that they can’t possibly let their children out without keeping a watchful eye on them. Ridiculous.
Adults forget how to have that childish wonder, that they can do ANYTHING they want if they put their mind to it. Over the years, as an adult, we are worn down… worn RIGHT DOWN. It’s lovely to have discovered that I can still pick up a pen and do some drawing, to calm me, to whisk me away from the loneliness that can be my world.
It is a positive reminder that everyone can do the same.
LikeLike
PS I have travelled the world too, been ripped away from so many things before there ever was a chance… I suffered abuse through an ex and I am still fighting for things I care about and believe in, for my family, for my friends, and for strangers… and yes, I do drugs.
LikeLike
I agree with you. All my life I was after being perfect, perfect for myself, perfect for my children, perfect for my patients and blah blah and blah. Then I decided that I have to do more things to satisfy what my childhood and early youth had made me do. I took up painting and playing my sitar, again. It is indeed therapeutic.
LikeLike
That is beautiful to hear – you just gave me goosebumps! ❤
The sitar? Really??? Where are you from to have had the desire to pick that up?? WOW!
LikeLike
Em, a proper conversation goes everywhere. Once the original point is solved, it moves on to more.
But, unless you’re too high, you’ll notice I never said that all drug users are invariably drains on society. But druggies are usually convinced that they’re fine. I’m sure my mother felt she was fine as she, repeatedly, forced a 5 year old boy to eat his own vomit. But conventional interpretations of her behavior might disagree.
And I grew up in another area, that was a mecca for stoners. I’ve likely known every variant. I’ve also known a variety of druggies. I’ve yet to meet any that’s impressive – but for the depths of their depravity and delusions. I don’t count rare users.
I genuinely don’t care if someone does drugs, as people can do whatever they want to themselves, be that self-destruction or self improvement. I do, however, have beef with self-destructive people who interact with others. Specifically: I don’t think self-destructive people, in this example druggies, should be allowed to interact with other people. They can negatively influence them – or harm them, driven by their drug-induced insanity.
LikeLike
Wow, you had some shit happen, didn’t you?
All I meant by “this conversation has gone weird” is because I feel that talking about drugs and society on a blog post about how to remember your childhood, is just a weird tangent… your interpretation of my blog post from your point of view in life really soured what was a very positive intention – which was to remind people to remember their childhoods and not just delve deeper into “maturity” and “responsibility” forgetting their creative and free spirits in the process.
Don’t get so defensive dude – we obviously have both had our own experiences!
Personally, I don’t think people who are fascists, or pedophiles, murderers, rapists, politicians, media whores, or any other nasty sort of person out there should interact with other people either – they are self-destructive as well as destructive to the environments surrounding them. There are so many types of people who are destructive on so many different levels that focusing on just druggies becomes mute really. That is all.
LikeLike
I have indeed. And that was only the beginning of my life. But I am not defensive, merely sharing a perspective which I feel is important. I focused on druggies simply because they are an example from my life. But consider how many of the people you listed are often drug users.
I genuinely didn’t mean to detract from your point, simply improve upon it. Happiness, which we might agree is the point of your post, is derived through vigilance against the chaotic forces of life. One of those forces is immaturity, which often results from overly pursuing whimsy. I merely wanted to impart that.
If I’ve challenged your comfort with drugs, maybe that’s because you shouldn’t do them. Maybe I’m wrong about the whole thing. Either way, I always feel it’s necessary to steer people away from excessive frivolity. Least another little boy suffer because they simply don’t give a shit.
LikeLike
Hello Louis, as I said, you took this post a step further and delved very deeply into something that was solely intended to remind people to not forget about losing their childhood wonder.
When ‘we’ are coming into adulthood, we are often told to “stop laughing so much” or “stop being silly” or “don’t do art, it will never get you anywhere”… the post is just asking people to remember their childhood innocence and to enjoy rediscovering talents that they were told were useless, or even pointless… when in fact they are, on a personal level, quite the opposite.
And if you don’t believe in excessive frivolity now and again, I feel sad for you. I have never claimed job seekers allowance, often holding down more than 2 jobs at once for the first 5 years after leaving uni, have paid my taxes since I was 16 and really lead quite a top life right now – but I still love a little excessive frivolity now and again. I feel that you are taking this too seriously, far too seriously, for what the intention of the post was, and that comes from your bad personal experiences of growing up with (what appears to be) a not very nice mother, and the lack of wonder that is usually present in all children (unless they are fucked up by the adults in their immediate vicinity).
As for me doing drugs – I travel the middle path and am not offended by your comments at all because I know my own limits. The same cannot be said for a lot of others out there, agreed.
On a side note: wasn’t there anything that you did as a child that made you feel good, that you stopped doing because you matured into an adult?
LikeLike
loss of innocence 😉
peace 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, that’s the one 🙂
LikeLike
You’ve taken my opinions to negative extremes. As I said, I’m merely stating the necessity of packaging realism with promotion of frivolity. The rest is response to your responses. Why would you so dramatically misinterpret me?
And I, more than most, avoid “success”, instead preferring intellectual pursuit and relaxation. I’ve spent the majority of my life frivolously; chance just keeps throwing me back into the shit. You’re more than welcome to end our conversation at any moment, I genuinely wouldn’t mind. While wasting time =]
LikeLiked by 1 person
Errr… that’s so amusing, because I thought you took my whole post as negative, which is why you were (or I misinterpreted) commenting so negatively… I actually thought you completely misinterpreted what my post was about, not vice versa. Words in B&W rather than in person often lose intonations etc… no harm done all in all. Wish you a beautiful day! ❤
LikeLike
By the way, Louis, I just read your blog… truly intriguing!
LikeLike
Happens in conversation. Infact, it usually happens. I’m glad you could see my actual intent.
And thank you. If you find anything of merit therein, be kind enough to spread the word.
LikeLike
Ditto 😀 peace.
LikeLike