“As is all else, the Omnicosm of All things is a work in progress. When at last wisdom unite with experience, Observant one repeats the cycle of creating life, then we will know what childhood truly means. Until then let’s speculate.”
“I am a gray matter alien, a dweller. We do not have this phase of the life cycle you call childhood. So, from my understanding of earthling childhood, it is like the Humours before the Samadla empire extinguished their home world island with the bomb. Inseparable from the childhood stage is fun and play. Though we know in chaotic worlds such as ours and yours, some children mature sooner than average. A harsh ‘real world’ will drive parents either to shelter their offspring from reality or to force their children to grow up faster. The only problem with this is the concept of real world. Everywhere is the real world, the house, the weed infested pond, the park, the college, the capital, a destitute back alley, everywhere. What makes some places seem more as the real world than others? Perhaps the real world is where one goes to be challenged and transformed. Or perhaps the real world is where one goes to seek support and nurturing. Children are more like flowers, vulnerable, a trade-off between strength and beauty. Innocence is a form of beauty. Of all creations, I feel children are with the creator.”
“How does contemporary society see children?”
“The foundation of an economy is children. New homes, new clothes, new schools, new everything is needed for a population explosion of new children. In some places on Earth, children are merely laborers, not receiving a complete formal induction or education into society. In formerly progressive nations like the United States of America, child labor has become outlawed. While in the bigger picture this is a responsible step to eradicate the exploitation of children, it also makes children dependent on someone with a monetary resource since the children themselves cannot earn their own supply. In the short-term return of investment capitalist economy that has swept across the globe, time is like a function that does not return to a previous era. Meaning that the generation who could withstand the short two decades of childhood until they themselves were fit to enter the workforce has had their own offspring and then rear these offspring into adulthood repeating the cycle, we would see that the opportunity from the previous generation is gone forever. In short, it gets harder for every new generation to become independent and self-sufficient.”
“That society sounds like it needs a revolutionary change. Since this has been ongoing for centuries there must be a paradox in there somewhere.”
“There is. We call it the Precursor paradox. The paradox arises in a nature of reality that is founded in the subjective. The eternally complex universe appears to start out of nowhere for every new mind but, no matter the appearance one finds themselves in the dilemma of being fit for the evolution of a new paradigm and a higher level of consciousness than their precursors. The problem lies in the fact that the precursors have finally obtained authority over their own precursors and will not readily give it to more evolved ones. If children are our future then why do they not get to partake in the structuring of their future?”
“A proverb that is on the same vibe says that ‘We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.’”
“Children are asked ‘what would you like to be when you grow up?’ By the time this broadcast reaches you, your civilization would’ve began going through another depressive state. Those children asked this infamous question would be learning that reality is pessimistic. So, me restating this question makes one reflect on their inner child. Are you as an adult still full of wonder and curiosity? Maybe it’s not you that has changed. Maybe it is the world that has lost its wonder and curiosity. With the world population aging we are losing touch with the innocence and blank slate that is needed to keep the world from being close-minded. Like a tree core or basaltic rock from the ocean floor, a child leaves an imprint of how the world was at its moment of creation, an incarnation of a time.”
“Welcome Observant one to our talk on childhood. Can you divulge what you know about childhood?”
Observant one: “When I just began to be I remember having an affinity to the word ‘special.’ This was before the word ‘special’ became used in education as a way to describe children who needed extra attention to their learning disabilities. It was like a euphemism. It soon entered slang and popular lingo as a way to sarcastically call someone stupid, a perversion of the word. I, the Observant one, had close relations to someone who was ‘special’ and they truly were special just as I was. But children are vicious and cruel with their bullying and just as fate would have it there was nothing I could do to help this truly special one. We shared an imaginary world, a paracosm. I knew another truly special one who had an imaginary friend. I was like the leader of the two. Before I joined mainstream school, I remember my mother calling me an old soul. Although I didn’t like it at first, it did give me the confidence I needed to survive the mandatory grade school system.”
“What is childhood in nature?”
“Childhood begins at the embryonic separation in egg, seed laying species and at birth in live birth organisms. Different species have different offspring rearing strategies. In r-selection, offspring are numerous and cheap, low survival rates. With k-selection, offspring are more extensively cared for, for longer time spans. Humans are like the k-selection species but at the dawn of the anthropocene in contemporary society something is going wrong. Offspring are regarded as dependents longer, not leaving the nest until later ages all the while being unable to sustain for themselves let alone create their own nest of offspring.”
“This makes me think of the age-old puzzle you earthlings known as the chicken or the egg. Is childhood the missing link between new species?”
“What we know for post-bomb Humours, is that new traits are functional at a very young age compared to the ages beyond puberty. It’s almost metaphysical how the future backward interferes with the behavior a child has at the present. Both mind and body must be psychic.”
“Speaking of psychic, who would you say has childhood mysticism?”
“I believe Observant one would also fit the phenomenon known as Indigo child and child-god archetype.”
Observant
one: “I remember as a child taking the transitory nursery culture and
adding a deeper meaning to what I felt to be fleeting lacking of an
eternal meaning. Stories I like most was the Little Engine that Could because it had message that willpower alone can overcome challenge and the nursery rhyme Twinkle Little Star because it is about stars, essential to nature of our existence. Another story I liked was the Giving Tree because it construed humanlike love to a tree.”
