Age before beauty

I used to disbelief my parents when they would tell me as a child, "you'll understand when you're older." But, I am beginning to think, they were right-well, mostly. As I near my mid-twenties, my perspectives are changing, my opinions altering, even solidifying-weird. My parents don't seem quite as crazy as they did, in fact I think they're pretty damn cool. When did that happen? I find spending an evening at home with them enjoying a good meal and quality conversation has become a joy and not an obligation. Crazy. It's amazing what perspective can do, or simply growing up a little bit...

Observations on children part I

Children are fascinating. They are the most exposed and uncensored versions of our adult selves. If we look to them we shall see our most basic wants, desires, sins and shortcomings manifested. The only difference between an adult and a child is a mask. An adult has had years and years to build this mask thick and deceiving. It covers all our unwanted discrepancies and incongruities. Children are defiant and willful—so are adults, amazingly so—yet, we have learned to clothe said defiance in the adult garb of “determination” and “confrontation.” It's amazing, almost embarrassing to understand that adults are really just large children playing dress-up and wearing big, ugly masks.

The ornery child I

The irony of seeking and suckling inspiration is that it rarely comes when sought. It's like an ornery child—refusing to come when you call it, and then appearing defiantly when you're not prepared. It catches you with your pants down as you ponder the meaning of toilet seat covers, or takes you unawares as you're driving home in rush-hour traffic, ruminating about the absurdity of human existence. It never cooperates or plays fair. It always finds you without pen or paper handy and just one stroke shy of genius, thus leaving you in howling misery, bemoaning the loss of what might have been brilliance. So, lay back, relax and let inspiration come to you. As they say, good things come to those who wait. Do not push or prod it, less it become irate and run away all together, but patiently wait for it to grow and mature, like the ornery child who just wants to come when they damn well feel like it, and not a moment sooner.

The real. the ideal. and...

I have always prided myself on being an idealist. However, the daily realities of life are beginning to suffocate and swallow whole much of my former idealisms. It's a bit discouraging, if I'm honest. Life, at least presently, is nothing I expected and everything I feared. Life just feels hard. And sadly, it's nowhere close to as hard as it could be, or as hard as it's going to get. Life also feels "realer" than it ever has, whatever than means. And I'm not sure I like real. I think I prefer ideal.

I'm wondering if this is just a season of life, or if this is "the" season of life. In that, this is simply it. Do I need to prepare for perpetual discouragement, at least from my formally idealistic standpoint, or rather do I adjust my overall paradigm of life. I think it's the latter.

Is the ideal over, or was it ever really the ideal? Have I simply been living in an illusion and have now entered into the "real world." Or have I always lived in the real world, but have just lived in a very different version than I do now? Not sure.

Life is also more "adult" now. It's responsibility. Responsibilities change everything. In many senses, I suppose I did live a bit of a "charmed existence." And for all intents and purposes, I still do, it's just a lot realer now. Maybe real is good.

I'm not sure I like adulthood, or "real life" very much But, I suppose there's no going back, is there? I can do nothing but move forward. Life doesn't work in reverse. But, I'm still not sure how I feel about completely abandoning my idealisms. I don't think I can ever fully escape them, they're part of who I am, but now it's how I meld the reality of the "real" with my former notions of the ideal. Although more importantly, it's how I become comfortable with that melding. Because it's both-the real and the ideal.

But, really, it's not about either the real or the ideal, is it? It's about something so much more basic and fundamental. It's about contentment. Truly.