We Are Children Growing Old · Intentional Men

We Are Children Growing Old

We all reach a certain age of awareness. There is no particular set age for it. Sometimes, it comes unbeckoned in many different cases. It won't be the elephant in the room type experience. It is like age itself. It sneaks up on you over time. We go through a continuous cycle of change—some for the good and some for the bad. The first awareness comes when we are young and still brand new. We quickly discover that to get attention, a good old-fashioned temper tantrum renders impressive results. We find that screaming like a wounded animal always gets the quickest response. We all have our personal and unique delivery system as we blurt out gibberish. It is a baby's brand and style of speaking in tongues. It must be somewhat spiritual since we always say "Hallelujah" or Thank you, God" when the screaming stops. We claim our independence and our rage in different ways. For example, the true mark of a child's rebellion is telling our parents "no." We cannot ponder the consequences of doing such a thing, so we do it. It is that urgency to tell someone off regardless of their position of authority or the pecking order of controlled chaos.

But we outgrow all of that, don't we? The short answer is no, we don't. We still take temper tantrums. When is the last time you cursed or threw something across the room? We have given these emotional outbursts names and placed them in categories. Road rage, a middle finger salute, cussing someone until they are black and blue. The categories of expression are endless. However, do not worry; man has created a pill to help us suppress those things. Things have changed over the years. Webster would have non-stop anxiety attacks if you could see how we have twisted words and their definitions. The phrase I just mentioned is a good example. People used to have "nervous breakdowns". We must have cured that one since you never hear that expression nowadays. Now we have panic or anxiety attacks. When I was a kid, you used to ask your grandparents, "How are you feeling today"? Their typical response, if they were feeling well, would be, "I feel rather gay today, and you?" Or if they saw you do something less than intelligent, they would often remark, "That boy has lost his ball in some high weeds."The whole point is that we are children growing old, as I pointed out some time ago in a poem I wrote called "Tears". May your later years be greater than your former! Whatever your dreams are, it’s not too late. Keep pursuing them with great zeal and anticipation. J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan includes the quote, "Even though you want to try to, never grow up".

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