What Has the World Come To

No, seriously, I have no way of knowing. You can't just sit down and read a newspaper, or talk to your buddies one evening, or, I don't know, ask that crazy old lady dressed in the same purple velvet dress for the past sixteen years who loudly talks to herself, - and think you've gotten any closer to finding out "what's up" anymore. Remember the days when all life that ever concerned any of your senses was the radius from the inside of your head, to maybe outside the courtyard, if that far. A great deal of importance was placed onto your cosy spot at home, and on your toys, and later some of your neighbour friends who inevitably had to be the people you'd eventually become closest with for life.

I'm strongly tempted to say sigh and call that time the "good old days", although I do remember the irritating constant restriction of every single aspect of my life when I was that age. A kid is pretty much a hostage of their parents. Then again the parents are a hostage too - dealing with a toy they were probably not even prepared for or anticipating when it appeared, and which under any circumstances and in any way cannot ever be turned off or gotten rid of. Without legal repercussions that is.

Here Dave England of Jackass demonstrates how to swing a baby away - into the child protective services, probably.

It's weird this relationship. On the one side, you never asked to be birthed into being - which is something one is likely to remind their parents during adolescence. It's true, but then on the other side, if not for them, you would never had been able to conceive that very thought in the first place. So unless you whole-heartedly believe in the pre- and after-lives, shut the fuck up. Not because grown ups are right, but because yes, life sucks. But there's no known alternative, since that world pretty much encapsulated everything possible to experience for a human.

See, this is weird, also. Why do thoughts about childhood lead to ponderings about the eternal exchange of existence between those who were, are, and those who will be? Oh, wait, I started this with complaining about the difficulty of learning about everything that ever was.

You grow up, and your world expands. While doing so it also grows thinner, have you noticed that? All your childhood friends you could run to and assemble for a hangout in an hour on a warm and blossom-scented summer evening are now probably scattered around the continent and beyond. You know more people, but nowhere near as well. You've now been to many more places, but how well do you know most of them? Whereas every inch of the neighbourhood you grew up in had probably been threaded on and cemented in your memory. Your activities are much more lengthy, varied, but usually much less intense - think of how many things per day you do automatically, whereas just stepping some stairs was a challenge of sorts until a certain age. How did your first time buying something on your own went?

I still feel like that six to sixteen year old me is still very close to me, like we talk every day. I think I probably constantly look back at what I thought was important then, to try and live up to it today. All for you, kiddo. Then I'm my own parent now, probably not even decently prepared or anticipating this sort of thing. You don't just change as you age, you grow layers. The imaginative, lonely, inquisitive, shy, and hopeful little core is still there, that's still you.

And that you know shit nothing about the world the same as you don't today. And that's why I just watch Jackass.

[Jackass' Dave England: http://jackass.wikia.com/wiki/Daddy_and_Baby?file=Daddy_baby_1.png]