Maybe there is really something about growing up: We change, and most of the time, we change into what we say we will never be.
As youngsters, we dreamt of castles and dragons, candies, and boxes of toys. We go home after school and tell our parents we want to become astronauts and firemen. The girls would love to pretend to be teachers or princesses, having tea in the grandest castle.
But as we grow up, we leave the dreams and fantasies behind. Below our beds, the old toys dust and the dragons are already slain. We will never consider becoming firemen because we realize that working in an office is more privileged, and to be an astronaut will not be on our career lists because we have to go to big universities to become one and math is very difficult to study anyway. Sometimes, “growing up” is a term people use to mean going practical. And being practical is a way of saying that our dreams should be suspended in our status quo.
I remember Tim Burton’s movie version of Alice in Wonderland. In it, Alice returns to Wonderland without any recollection that she had been there when she was still a child. She feels out of place, confused, and unbelieving. When she met the Caterpillar who told her that she is the predicted “champion” or savior of the place, he also said that she lost her “muchness”—greatness.
And as I look at how life takes its course and how we respond to it as persons, I realize that it isn’t only Alice who treaded Life and lost her muchness. We all do, and the worst bit is that we will never admit to it.
The funny thing about growing up is that we lose sight of the things we once wanted. As adults, we want to please others, not ourselves. We satisfy what our friends and the society think we should look like. In our decision-making, we don’t just ask other people what they think. We let them make the decisions for us and we follow. When we think of ourselves unique, we actually consider what others might say about our clothes, our favorites, and our choices.
One forgets that growing up is not about changing yourself. Growing up is building yourself—learning from the experiences and the setbacks, and making yourself ready for what may come next. We grow up by adventure. We go, we fall, we stand, and we go on.
The speed of life is something that nobody can ever follow or interpret. It is like a stream, where a lot of things and events unknown linger in its banks and way. And like that stream, we know where to go and what we want. It is when we grow up that we suddenly ask ourselves a lot of questions: Can I do it? Is it possible? And then we doubt ourselves. We say then that we cannot.
As adults, too, we change the way we look at things. As children, we know what we wanted. We know that we want a top spin or a basketball, and we know that these things are ours. Today, it’s another way around. Things lure us, make us buy and rely and hook our happiness on them. We once own these things, now, these things own us
I remember in Primary School where we met a lot of different kids. Some are in the neighborhood, while a big lot are not. It is very commendable how even on the first day of classes; we become friends with everyone, play with them, and even hold hands with them. Today, one’s friend is usually his own level. We have our own standards of who is a right friend and what is not.
Sometimes, I ponder on how a lot of things in life become complicated. Then I realize this—is it really, or are we just making it hard for ourselves? Maybe it’s time to sit and go over the things we do. Do we still have our hearts in it? Or are we just doing it for doing’s sake?
To say that life is a battlefield is a typical grown-up’s insight of it. But when we start to call it an adventure, we appreciate the things that come to us, the pretenses, the passions, the blessings. One thing is for sure, this muchness is something that is real and permanent, it’s our doubts that are transient.
Maybe it’s not too late to find ourselves in this adventure. Maybe we just have to take time and realize that in growing up, we are not really faced with challenges, but mounds of rocks to climb for happiness. As this line from a journal I had goes:
When you run so fast to get to somewhere, you miss the fun of getting there. Life is not a race so take it slower; enjoy the music before the song is over.
