Revisit a playground. Sit for at least 30 minutes. Reflect on the “simplicity” of childhood.

Growing up, into a child

“Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live
it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.” - Thoreau

In addition to tremendous amounts of nostalgia, reflecting on childhood can be very

emotionally complicated. You evaluate yourself now compared to then. You remember

your past goals, your innocence, your logic, your flat simplicity. In many ways, I was

wiser when I was young. Everything feels cluttered now, complex, morally questionable,

chaotic, and lesser than something I had before.

Youth and clarity. I felt clarity and peace when I was younger. When you’re young, you

cling to the principles you were given, what else do you have to help, experience?

Opinions? I think not. Nowadays it seems like constant uncertainty about the nature of

the world, of truth, myself, and how to navigate. Now my false experience and disregard

for fundamentals and principles is deadly. I can no longer hope for the future to

enlighten me as I could when I was little. Unlike before, there is no hope for a magically

more developed brain with a decision-making arsenal reeking with experience and

cunning. I’m supposed to be there but I don’t feel like it. In many ways, I ​was there and

my false knowledge and experience has led me away. The youthful short-sightedness

and solid-to-the-core principles that helped me survive I replaced with my own flawed

ideas, based on my “experience” rather than the experience of others. “​For

nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.” -Emerson. I​ ran out of stamina,

gave up discipline and steadfastness, and partook in the vice that defines the world.

Persistence​. But no, I conformed.

In youth, there was always a cushioning of years to protect me from responsibility, fear

of the unknown, caring about useless things, and ​any shortcomings. Now I’m in the

thick of it. I used to have freedom and time. Now there is no space for error, no re-do’s,

this is it. Major decisions all the time, constantly, even when I don’t even realize it, it

​ he little breaks you take, pushing things off until later, just
always adds up. ​Always. T

half an hour more sleep. You never get any of it back. Everything follows you all the

time, the weight of past decisions and future battles are incessant in their burden and

ruthlessness. The little social stresses that society always brings up are an afterthought.

I’ve held up so far, but the simple fact is I will soon fail if ​I continue ​my ways. ​I have to

change, die even. To constantly study the great specialists of life that I’ve known or

heard of until I am physically the average of their qualities and no longer myself. This

seemingly morbid idea of killing your personality is already true. “​Your​” personality is

just a set of qualities taken from other people who took them from others and so on. If

you are not enough, change the definition of you.

When I was young, there was no me. I was the average of the adults I knew, and in that

life, that was good enough, good for my standards now. Now I must shed myself until

my very essence has changed.