On Childhood

Day 46

The great man is he who doesn't lose his childs-heart. - Mencius

What is it to be a great man, a great person? There are those we refer to as great in a historical sense, like Alexander, Peter, and Napoleon – men who led armies, who forged nations, who made history, and who are remembered today. There are those we think of as great because they're work had a tremendous effect on our world today, people like Luis Pasteur, Albert Einstein, and Aristotle. There are people we think of as great with a moniker, a great Inventor like Nikola Tesla, a great Businessman like Steve Jobs, or a great President like George Washington. There are also people we think of as great not because of what they did for the world, but because of what they do in life. People like the mothers who raised us, the teachers who taught us, the friends who helped us, and the stranger who was kind to us. We think back on them and feel that they are a great sort of person, one whom we can admire.

What we think of as a great person can be different for each of us. The qualities we attribute to them, the reasons that we call them great, and the reverence we have for them can all be different. We might have a different view of history, and think that Napoleon wasn't great himself but was only militarily victorious because he was carried along by the great force of the newly invigorated French people. We might understand that while Luis Pasteur was a good scientist, that he also stood on the shoulders of giant and was merely the tip of the spear. We could be of the opinion that since George Washington kept slaves, that he doesn't deserve the moniker of a great man. We can realize later that while our teacher's tried, they also made mistakes and could have been better, could have been great and not merely good. I don't think that there is any particular and definitive quality or point of fact that absolutely points out what it is to be a great person, but I do feel that most of us can have an opinion about that. I feel that most of us have an understanding of what it means to be a great person – even if we aren't entirely clear about what, exactly, that is. Isn't this somewhat interesting, that we could have an understanding of something without being able to firmly describe it? I find that if I try, then while I get a little ways along in my endeavor, that I usually come down to giving examples of either events or of people.

When I give examples of events, I find I say that to be great is to do something, to achieve something, that is above and beyond. Yet, upon reflection, is the mere doing of something above and beyond mere achievement, required? All men fail at something, and surely one failure doesn't disqualify a man from being great. In not one failure, why two, or three? Perhaps then it is the trying that matters, the mere attempt to do something great, which makes one great. However, terrible men have done great things – witness Alexander, for one. One, though, may also be a great villain – but then is that a person to admire? Does great in that sense have anything to do with being someone I admire and look up to, who I desire to emulate? Yet – when I think of great people, I have known in my daily life, the family, friends, and strangers whom I have known that I think of as great people – don't I admire them, and isn't that why I call them great? After all, if I thought that my dad was a terrible failure as a father, then I wouldn't admire him, and I wouldn't think of him as great. At the same time, couldn't I hate somebody and yet still think them a great person, like Churchill or Charles De Gaul? It feels like great is too complex, to multi-faceted to really pin down. If I fix one aspect of the meaning in place, then there is another aspect which escapes me, another way in which I use the concept, or can use the concept, in which the understanding of I currently have of the idea 'great' doesn't work quite right.

I can think that I want to be a great man, and in that thought I can intend many different meanings, which are still one thing in the world, one gem. I do suspect though that I don't have the idea to clear in my mind, what it is to be great. To attempt to analyze that and come out with a clear and useful picture to understand the quote above seems to be a bit of a misleading quest. Could our understanding of the other side of the quote reveal something? After all, if 'great man' is a gem, then that gem seems also to be connected to 'childs-heart' in some way, if we understand this quote to be telling the truth; And we do, because we belive everything.

Your childs-heart, what is it? Noticeably, it is not your childs-mind. To not lose your childs-heart isn't to always have the simple mind of a child, to have the intellectual capacity of a child. Rather, the heart of a child might be what is behind the mind, to be what lies behind the intentions, actions, and concerns of a child. I do not have the age of child today, so what I have to say will necessarily be divorced from what an actual child would have to say. Given that though, I, like all folk, was once a child. I remember childhood, some of what I thought and did, and much of what others did. I am also, again like all folk, able to speak to children. I've played with little cousins, looked after kids in middle school, and had long conversations with high school students. Do you not know what a child is? You can find out.

I find that children are at once simple and complex. A child can be concerned and focused on something in the very near term – obsessed with a new game, enthralled by a show or story, in love with trains, or mired in absolute misery. The attention span of a child can be incredibly short, and they can be distracted by almost anything, as anyone who has ever stood in front of a classroom can unfortunately attest to. Children can also be incredibly focused, as my own memories of reading a thousand page book from start to finish in one sitting, or of spending weeks trying to get my character to level 80 in an MMO, can attest to. A child's life and thoughts can also be convoluted and hard to explain or comprehend. The dozens of ever-shifting alliances, treaties, and wars both official and unofficial between a child, his brothers, his playmates, and his authority figures requires a complex knowledge of relationships, the ability to mentally map out an area, and that the qualities of being able to react to change can be applied on a daily basis. Perhaps not everything can be articulated into words, but spend a few days hanging out at school, and you'll soon understand that there is a lot more going on beneath the surface than is first apparent, and that to really understand a child's relationships, you'll need a books worth of history to figure out the why and hows. Children can disappoint you, ore can surprise you, sometimes seemingly unable to grasp simple concepts like 'don't bother your brother or he will hit you', and that bedtime is eight'o'clock – during other times, children can evolve rapidly, seeming becoming a new, better-adjusted person over night, having finally figured out sometimes in their heads. What this all means is that as you try to comprehend children, you are going to find a lot of examples of things and ideas, ones which seemingly conflict with each other and which don't tend to stay the same from day to day, but rather seem to exist in a sort of nebulous range, where children tend to be all sort of similar to each other, but are also incredibly different from one another. So, instead of focusing on actions, I want to try and focus on events. Events and experiences which almost all of us have. Perhaps in this way I can, by trying to understand my own childhood, come to have an idea what a childs-heart is.

My first memory is of joy, of hanging out at Harry and Gary's house next door, of playing Pokemon Blue, of reading Calvin and Hobbes at Grandpa's house. These are moments which were simple at the time, but which are now much more important, deep, complex, and meaningful to me than they were then. Back then they were times of simple happiness, one day among many, but now they have seemingly been transformed in my memory to moments of supreme bliss, to a time where my life was simple and fulfilled. They are moments I treasure, but they are also moment I remember. Because I do both, I often find that I take them out and look at them in quiet times, in times of doom or times of melancholy. It's so much harder now to ignore the world outside, to not think about all the things I should do, could do, and won't do. To worry, not just about the future, but to worry about anything. I don't mean that its harder to live in the moment or something like that, but that it is harder to make memories like that today. Its harder to have memories which are clear and precious, which look to contain shadows only after the fact, and not within the moment. Shadows of melancholy memory.

My second memory is one of grief. There are many times I experienced grief of course, but there is one which sticks in my mind most strongly of all. It's not a single moment like a dying squirrel in the backyard or the loss of a pet, but rather it is a story; The first time I cried because of something which didn't happen to me. I remember reading The Bridge to Terabithia alone in my room, and weeping for I don't know how long. I've remembered that book for the rest of my life. I read a lot of book, a lot of stories, because I feel that I learn something from them. I, in some way, experience what it is to be someone else, to live another life or to face a trial which I never had to face. There are moments of joy and terror in stories, times when you don't know what going to happen next. Times when you run into despicable person, times when you are involved in wondrous capers, and times when we figure out grand mysteries. Some books, some stories, stick with you longer than others. Some seem to be stronger tales, to have a stronger effect, message, or tie to you. The relationship between the books I remember most and me, sometimes feels a bit like the question of the chicken and the egg – which came first, the book that shaped who I am, or the me who was able to enter the world of the tale and bring back the treasure I found there?

My third memory is one of rage. I tended to be an angry child, one who was rarely willing to calmly accept orders, who wasn't satisfied with answers, and who was so full of unbridled emotion that I sometimes felt more akin to a nuclear fire or a hurricane wind than a boy of flesh and blood. Everything was frustrating – why didn't people listen to what I told them, why did I have to do what I was told, why was screaming somehow wrong, why couldn't I beat this video game, and so on, were questions I found myself asking constantly, over and over again. Sometimes I learned and grew because of the answers I received, but more often then not I felt that I grew as a person in spite of the answers I received. I often acted out in stupid ways, which I realized were stupid at the time, but knowing that doing something, no matter how bad it turned out, was more bearable than doing nothing.

My fourth memory is one of wonder. I read The Tao of Physics and was amazed on how it seemed to offer a glimpse into the secrets of the physical world. I read The Prydain Chronicles and the Immortals Series and my eyes grew wide at how Taran and Diane seemed to have feelings, ideas, and doubts which were akin to my own, that perhaps here was, in this tale, a character like me. I remember watching subtitled shows like Slayers and The Kung Fu Master on this one Asian language tv channel that only aired on Friday nights and structuring my entire day around being able to watch them because they weren't like anything I usually saw on TV. I remember listening to an old cd of The Chieftains for hours at a time, learning that there was a type of music I enjoyed, and that it had a name. I remember spending all day walking in the woods at Grandpa's house, happy to be exploring. I remember reading The Lord of the Rings, and feeling that perhaps there was something more to the world then what was familiar and urbane. I remember my first LAN party, and my last day of high school, days of new adventure. I remember all sort of things – things which seemed to hold a promise that the world might still have something deep and interesting in it.

A childs-heart, for me at least, might be something like that, sometimes that lies not in the precise actions and thoughts, but in the force behind them. To have, not mere happiness, but moments which are worth remembering. To understand and experience lives which are not solely my own, which are not bounded by the inane, but by the meaningful. To test limits and not be satisfied with the rules of the world, and to never run out of the energy to challenge. To not give up because I don't know the way forward. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yeald.

I that all that is required to become a great man? I think should be surprised if that was all that was needed, that that was the answer. I do hope though, that it might be the beginning of an answer – it might be a clue, or bit of advice, that I can try to follow and see where it leads. I remember thinking as a child that adults were always so sure of themselves, had a lot of power and knew many things – but didn't listen very well. Specifically, they didn't listen to me very well. Oh, they might hear and understand my words, but it was rare indeed that I got the sense that they had any understanding what it was like to be me, that they had any real care for my concerns and wishes. It didn't help that I wasn't very good at communicating – in fact, I'm still not that great – and that I often had long, long thoughts. I didn't know what I wanted to ask, but I knew I wasn't happy with the answers I got, with the methods and advice that seemed designed to make me more like them, more well-adjusted, more polite-society, more practical, more goal-oriented, more definitive.

To some extent, like all people, I grew up a little. I figured out how to hide and blend in, how to seem normal and live a mostly normal life. I learned to not resent the answer I got as much, because I grew able to understand other peoples points of view better. In some ways this made me a better listener, because now I can sometimes see behind the masks people wear, but it also made me worse sometimes, because we now make more assumptions and have more distractions in our heads. I don't speak child quite as well as I used to, and I find that I have to concentrate or map things out to really understand them. However, I do hope that I have not grown up too much. There are still new moments I treasure, still times my eyes well up, still topics I can rant about for an unhinged hour, and still times I think I see a light glimpsed in the lost woods, straight though the trees. I'm still frustrated, and confused, and trying to figure out something I know not of. I don't...don't know what do do, how to do it, where to go, who to talk to. I don't know how to make a living, or what I should do next. I am, perhaps, to much of a child at times. I think that all children feel this once in a while, that they should be more grown up than they are, that the should know more, should be able to do more, that they should have achieved more, or gotten better in some way. We pass out of childhood, and that now feel while being Peter Pan is good for a while, at the end of the day we aught to come back from Never-Land. We can still visit of course, but, and I think we all suspect this; It is much harder to go back than we thought it would be, our visit is often only a beach day, and the island is never quite the same ever again. Perhaps it is me being childish, but I do hope that some day I can be a great man. Some day, in the future, but not today. Today, for as long as I can, I don't want to be a grownup. There are thus many things I can't do, many rules which people with more power than me will try to make me follow just on their say-so, and many foolish decision I am going to make. The world as we know it doesn't run very well without adults, either the social or the metaphysical one, but without children, or at least childish people, I suspect that while the world would turn out to be very well-functioning and well ordered, that it would not be filled with great people. It would not be filled with great men, but rather with what could be called eminently practical and sensible men who know what the world is really like. It would be a place of Childhoods End, and it would leave behind those impractical, fumbling dreamers who fail more often then not, but, sometimes, write wonderful stories, and whom hope to do impossible and difficult things. I'm not very good at most things, and I'm a bit of a failure as an adult, but I can still, perhaps, do one thing better than any pure adult ever could- I can hear my inner child. I can listen to myself. I can talk, and write, and think, and dream, and scream.