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Being Like Children
by Forrest D. Poston
Think about when we're
children. We have nothing and know nothing. Every
experience is new and every boundary a challenge. Given a
set of blocks, we experiment with different ways of
turning and stacking them, and even chewing them. When a
stack falls, we start again. Even if someone gives us a
set designed to build a particular item, we're more likely
to build something of our own or play with the box rather
than being satisfied with pre-packaged creativity.
With that same attitude,
we learn to walk, to run, to ride a bike, to drive a car.
We get hurt, but mostly we survive, even thrive. As we
grow, we gather experiences, people, and material items.
In other words, we have (or seem to have) less to gain and
more to lose. The same people who laughed when we wanted
to be a cowboy and said we could become whatever we wanted
when we said we wanted to be president start talking about
security and being sensible.
When we want to major in
English or art, they tell us there are no jobs, and they
convince us that it's better to be a bored but secure
accountant than it is to be a dreamer with possibilities
matched by uncertainty. Easy laughter is replaced with
"Bah, humbug." Eventually, the only thing that matters is
financial worth, and "the long term" only means our
immediate personal future.
Look around, and you can
point to person after person who has followed that track.
It's so dominant that we consider it normal, natural,
almost inevitable. From time to time we point to someone
who broke free and walked a path based on following an
individual desire to learn and live, but we ususally
reserve that for those who broke free and managed to make
more money than anybody else. We revere Bill Gates because
he has an enormous bank account despite the fact that his
company makes inferior products. Gates is now one of the
big names in education reform even though his only
qualification is how much he can afford to spend on the
effort.
Now keep in mind that
every organization eventually forms an identity, a self,
and becomes not just an organization but an organism. It
applies to companies and countries. Just as children begin
with a sense of adventure, play, and joy, so do those
companies and countries. And just as adventurous children
become security-minded adults, so do those companies and
countries, complete with the narrow, short-term
perspective focusing on the financial bottom line.
Meanwhile, both art and
physics tell us that what we call security is really a
lack of growth and development. Sure we try to grow, if
you mean increasing the size of our net financial worth,
but there's a difference between growth and merely getting
bigger. Real growth requires change, and with change there
must always be uncertainty. We learn from our mistakes.
Too often, security means avoiding mistakes by avoiding
risks. We don't risk; we don't make mistakes; we don't
learn.
In physics, the second
law of thermodynamics deals with systems and growth.
According to this law, a closed system must tend toward
entropy. That means all the energy spreads out and slows
down. A closed system can only wind down. However, if a
system is open, outside energy can be added, allowing the
system to change and grow.
Imagine a stream feeding
into a pond. As long as the stream flows in, the water in
the pond remains a lively place. If there's enough flow
coming in, there will even be excess flowing off in
another stream. However, if that stream stops flowing into
the pond, the motion and ripples will slow, settle, and
cease, move to entropy. We know what that leads to in a
pond, stagnation, fouling, and death. Almost by
definition, security means a closed system, and right now
our entire social mentality is focused on security. We are
not the same country that reached to the Pacific and to
the moon.
Still, I'm not convinced
that we're ready to wind down, fade away, or ride off into
the sunset. I know that students don't want to graduate
into the same life they see adults living. Given the
opportunity and mental jumpstart, I've watched college
students change from accounting to fashion. I've watched
students with serious drug problems trade drugs for
thought and become great seekers of a different order.
Adults also go through
many changes no matter how hard they try to resist, and
each change is a rebirth, an opportunity to shed one skin
for another. They tend to start around 30 and hit every 10
years or so, and at least some are called our mid-life
crisis. Whether or not we're visited by three spirits, we
get a chance to change.
For many, it comes when
we finally feel like we've fulfilled our responsibilities.
More than one student has come to a weekly conference and
told me in a somewhat shakey voice that both parents have
quit their jobs and taken up a long delayed goal like boat
building or running a food wagon at state fairs. These
parents usually tell the children that this is what
they've long wanted but felt obligated to hang onto the
regular job, even a hated job, until the youngest child
was in college.
Good parents, right?
Dedicated, loving, and well-meaning parents, one and all,
and yet there's a bug in the system. In one case, my
student was the youngest, just a freshman, and it still
shook her entire view of the world to learn that her
father had hated his high paying, well-respected career.
Her brother was a junior or senior, and he had dedicated
himself to following in his father's footsteps, the
footsteps it turned out his father never wished to walk.
In his dedication, the
father lived a lie. What we tell our children is
important, but what we show them is far more powerful.
This father built what his son thought was Oz, and then he
pulled the curtain aside. The son bounced from major to
major for a while, and the last I knew he became a golf
instructor in Florida, more from desperation than desire.
So we have our chances
and choices, for ourselves and for our children. Not
everybody needs to quit their job or run away to join the
circus. What matters most is our attitude, how we measure
the balance between security and possibilities. Many have
said that we need to be like children. That doesn't mean
we become immature or blindly obedient. It means having a
sense of wonder and adventure while still realizing that
it's not a good idea to jump off the roof with an umbrella
even if your big brother says so.
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Other Essays and Poetry
Something
Somewhat
Vaguely
Like a Resume
Being
Like
Children
The
Blessing and the Blues
The
Cat With a Bucket List
David
and the Revelation
The
Dawn, the Dark, and the Horse I Didn't Ride In On (an
odd, meandering, semi-romantic story)
Ghost
Dancer
in the Twilight Zone
The
Hair Connection and the Nature of Choices
The Mug,
the Magic, and the Mistake
Trumpet
Player,
USDA Approved
Videos
Poetry
Selected
Poems
The
Poetry
Process
Writing by Current or Former Students
Ms.
Write Meets Her Match in Jr. Ms. Write Now
by Heide Perry
I'll
Just
Have Cats
by Cara Hummel
Toys
to
Toys
by Allyson Bowlds
Scribbles
and Bits
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