I remember being a young kid, looking up at everything in the world. I remember summer days riding home in my dad's orange '67 volkswagon bus, the engine putting along, and of course, the radio blasting - usually NPRs hourly news cycle but if the world was proving too heavy for the shoulders of his daughter on a particular day, my Pop would usually change the channel to whatever rock station happened to be playing Eric Clapton and the like. Our windows would be down, the wind sweeping away the bass vibrations with the oily exhaust spluttering from back pipe. We'd always exchange talk about our days, or rather I would usually just gush ecstatically about riding horses and mucking out stalls - for me, another day in paradise. I was rarely scared of these creatures that towered above my tiny body. I learned their language, and simply trusted them to do me no intentional harm.
Of course, as I've gotten older and my understanding and perspective has evolved to look down upon many things in the world (both literally and figuratively), I am always so floored by the innocent candidness of the very young. As I navigate the seeming complexities of my own life, I can't help but yearn sometimes for the unquestioning clarity of vision that kids enjoy. For example, walking through the Seattle Art Museum's Picasso exhibition with Claire last winter I was gazing upon an abstract painting of a naked woman, reclining comfortably despite the various contradictions of her curvy dimensions. I stood there for a moment, to admire the piece of course, but moreover to attempt to understand the crazy twists within Picasso's brain intellectually - the rationale that liberated him from coloring inside the lines of classic artistic tradition. I soon found however, that my serious intent of making sense of Picasso - an effort that would have been appreciated by "sophisticated" adults - would be momentarily overturned and ridiculed by two young brothers between five and eight years old who proved more open-minded than anyone else on that floor.
"What is that?" the littlest brother asked, shaking his blonde head into unruliness, and putting his nose as close to the paint as possible. I could almost hear my inner art snob wimper.
"C'mon, isn't it obvious?" retorted the older brother. "It's obviously an octopus, duhhh. See?" pointing innocently toward the woman's breasts, claiming them to be the "octopus' eyeballs," the many limbs the creatures legs, dangling precariously into surrealism.
Grinning happily and pushing back the peels of laughter that threatened to burst out of my chest, I stalled behind them, hoping to hear the conversation evolve. But of course, two seconds later the boys were off to the next masterpiece, interpreting art in blasphemous ways that only children can (and can get away with).
It got me thinking, and as I was again reminded today thinking through some of the decisions I must make soon, about how upon entering adulthood, we choose to see the world in incredibly regimented forms. I know we can't necessarily "unlearn" or "uncondition" ourselves from the society we've come of age in. But the ability for the young boys to see something completely different - an octopus - in place of the "right" answer, aka. a highly sexualized female figure, was thrilling. And, it made me wonder what I've trained myself to no longer see.
What kind of world have I left behind? What happens when I think about such things as truth, life, trust, love, and happiness in terms of what joyful or devastating experiences such things have brought?
Moreover, it makes me think about ways in which I can look up at the world in wonder and curiosity, instead of down upon it with the conceit, cynicism, and arrogance that is often "wisdom" gone sour.
No, I don't wish for innocence. Going through the various growing pains of junior high, high school, and even college once is enough. But, it is fascinating to me to think about what life would be like living with the perspective of an adult but the openness and innocence of a child. Authors and poets have waxed on about this since the beginning. My assumptions of the "obvious" having been challenged by those two boys, I can't help but fall into the same timeless musings about (thanks again, Camus) the "art" of living.
To love joyfully and ecstatically, but without blindness.
To trust wholly, but only those who earn it.
To think pragmatically, but never without compassion.
And so I can only hope that the juxtapositions upon life's canvas can coexist much like the octopus and Picasso's painted woman. For perhaps they aren't really so obviously different afterall.
Of course, as I've gotten older and my understanding and perspective has evolved to look down upon many things in the world (both literally and figuratively), I am always so floored by the innocent candidness of the very young. As I navigate the seeming complexities of my own life, I can't help but yearn sometimes for the unquestioning clarity of vision that kids enjoy. For example, walking through the Seattle Art Museum's Picasso exhibition with Claire last winter I was gazing upon an abstract painting of a naked woman, reclining comfortably despite the various contradictions of her curvy dimensions. I stood there for a moment, to admire the piece of course, but moreover to attempt to understand the crazy twists within Picasso's brain intellectually - the rationale that liberated him from coloring inside the lines of classic artistic tradition. I soon found however, that my serious intent of making sense of Picasso - an effort that would have been appreciated by "sophisticated" adults - would be momentarily overturned and ridiculed by two young brothers between five and eight years old who proved more open-minded than anyone else on that floor.
"What is that?" the littlest brother asked, shaking his blonde head into unruliness, and putting his nose as close to the paint as possible. I could almost hear my inner art snob wimper.
"C'mon, isn't it obvious?" retorted the older brother. "It's obviously an octopus, duhhh. See?" pointing innocently toward the woman's breasts, claiming them to be the "octopus' eyeballs," the many limbs the creatures legs, dangling precariously into surrealism.
Grinning happily and pushing back the peels of laughter that threatened to burst out of my chest, I stalled behind them, hoping to hear the conversation evolve. But of course, two seconds later the boys were off to the next masterpiece, interpreting art in blasphemous ways that only children can (and can get away with).
It got me thinking, and as I was again reminded today thinking through some of the decisions I must make soon, about how upon entering adulthood, we choose to see the world in incredibly regimented forms. I know we can't necessarily "unlearn" or "uncondition" ourselves from the society we've come of age in. But the ability for the young boys to see something completely different - an octopus - in place of the "right" answer, aka. a highly sexualized female figure, was thrilling. And, it made me wonder what I've trained myself to no longer see.
What kind of world have I left behind? What happens when I think about such things as truth, life, trust, love, and happiness in terms of what joyful or devastating experiences such things have brought?
Moreover, it makes me think about ways in which I can look up at the world in wonder and curiosity, instead of down upon it with the conceit, cynicism, and arrogance that is often "wisdom" gone sour.
No, I don't wish for innocence. Going through the various growing pains of junior high, high school, and even college once is enough. But, it is fascinating to me to think about what life would be like living with the perspective of an adult but the openness and innocence of a child. Authors and poets have waxed on about this since the beginning. My assumptions of the "obvious" having been challenged by those two boys, I can't help but fall into the same timeless musings about (thanks again, Camus) the "art" of living.
To love joyfully and ecstatically, but without blindness.
To trust wholly, but only those who earn it.
To think pragmatically, but never without compassion.
And so I can only hope that the juxtapositions upon life's canvas can coexist much like the octopus and Picasso's painted woman. For perhaps they aren't really so obviously different afterall.
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