Re: I'm still here
AntiUtopia (AntiUtopia@aol.com)
Sun, 18 Jan 1998 22:31:59 -0500 (EST)
In a message dated 1/18/98 5:37:03 PM EST, Fluxis@aol.com writes:
<< << Little kids are violent, selfish, egocentric, cruel, and
wonderful somehow all at once. >>
And adults are violent, selfish, egocentric, cruel and TERRIBLE. >>
They can be. Not necessarily are :) You speak as one who has no children.
You're still a bit of a child yourself, I bet. :) Children give and love
unselfconsciously. They do it, like all things, on impulse. Adults love
deliberately and directedly. I prefer the mature love of a grown woman any
day...
<< Any college proffessor ever teach you how to pull off those traits while
maintaining the naivette/idealism that allows you to get away with it and
people still calling you adorable? I doubt it.
The only thing better about adults is they aren't sticky 24 hours a day! :)
-ecas
>>
Ok, I'll give ya that last statement :). But kids don't have idealism.
Idealism is more the product of an adolescent mind than a child's mind--you
have to be capable of abstract thought. And children, as well as adolescents,
see life solely in black and white terms, when real life is colored by grays
and rainbow hues.
Children tend to be concrete and specific, so incapable of holding to ideals.
They can't appreciate beauty, really, unless you see beauty in plastic jewelry
and video games. They tend to think that what they're given is the best there
is (that trust thing, ya know... :) ), so chalkboard art and fingerpaints will
always lose to Monet and Dali.
We idealize children to highlight a few qualities lost at best, not to
diminish adulthood. You do need to read Blake a bit. We grow out of
innocence, a bad state to stay in, into experience, a bad state to stay in,
until we become like the Old Man in the cycle of poems, regaining a wise
experience.
Jim