Being Childish

By Konstantinos Kontos

Children grow up so fast. Ask any parent. Before you know it, your best little person in the world, you loved niece and nephew or grandchildren, they’ve all left behind that magical age and stepped in as another, proverbial cog in society’s, inexorable machine. 

We lament the loss of childhood and adults often reminisce, with sweet sorrow, that time in their lives. But, what do we really lose as we grow up? Is this loss important, not only for the individual but for society as a whole?

There’s so much to be said for the spontaneity that children exhibit, the carefree life and the joy of discovering the world around you. But I wish to put my finger on something else. Naïveté. 

The process of growing up is largely one of conformity. As we’re driven to conform, we bend and get shaped into a mould (norm). We acquire rules and behavioral patterns. Our thoughts are shaped as per those patterns. Slowly but steadily we begin to perceive the world and our relationships through those patterns. Pretty soon, our minds are unfettered no more.

Frank Herbert envisioned this very well in his unique, trans-humanist, Dune universe. He writes of the need to cultivate the naive mind as a path to achieving great mental feats. In this context the word naive does not equal foolishness. It implies a straight line of thought. And I believe Herbert was right.

If we we meta-cognize a little and reflect upon ourselves we are able to see the unnecessary complications, the round-about way of our everyday thinking. Most importantly, the presumptions and prejudices in our relationships. Whenever we do any of that we are essentially, transferring mental power to tasks irrelevant to our true well being and to that of our community. We lose power that we could use to process positive thinking and advance our culture.

Children have none of those restrictions. They are naive. They see the world as it is and reason in straight lines. They use all of their faculties to achieve the goals that are truly meaningful to them. They love purely and dislike honestly. They imagine directly out of their feelings and not through established, collective myths. 

They’re being childish. And we might gain a lot by entering their realm as often as we can.