Examining the mind of a child.

First off... It's been a while since I last posted (since March of last year evidently) and I felt the need to change the format of the blog. So that's new. Not that I suspect anyone really checks up on this regularly... Just felt an obligation to acknowledge that.

Anyway - moving on to more important things. I've been thinking quite a bit lately about seeing the world through the mind of a child. At the end of the day, I do value what small amount of wisdom I have been able to obtain through watching those around me and the inevitable wisdom that time seems to bring with it. But there are many things that appeal to me when it comes to the mind or mindset of a child barely touched by the influences of the outside world.

1. Innocence
2. Simplicity
3. Open-mindedness

Innocence is something that we definitely lose as we grow older, whether we like it or not. Innocence and experience, in my opinion, directly oppose each other. In order to fully understand this thought myself, I had to look up the definition of innocence.

Innocence: A lack of guile or corruption; purity.

Infants and children are, more often than not, devoid of most corruption that life experience inevitably brings into our minds. This is not to say that all forms of experience are corruptive, however seeing the world in an innocent way and without these corruptions would definitely solve many problems that I fall into psychologically. As we gain life experience, we become much more jaded. We naturally assume the worst even if we are hoping for the best. That is human nature. Wouldn't going back to a mindset of innocence prevent wrong assumptions and, consequentially, destructive misunderstandings? Life would seemingly be much simpler.

That brings me to number two: simplicity. Let's define that as well.

Simplicity: The quality or condition of being easy to understand or do.
 

Sounds about right to me. What better way to describe the way a child communicates? Children, by nature, are very blunt (easy to understand) and are generally not very reserved when it comes to talking about the world around them. That being said, this is one of those moments when I am thankful for the life experience and wisdom that tells me not to say anything and everything that comes into my head... But on the flip-side, it would be very nice to feel as though the people around me were not judging my opinion/were open to it. I think that children do not assume other's may react in a negative way to their opinions and, therefore, do not hold back in voicing them. A great example that comes to mind is a part in one of my favorite books in which a child is talking to a school teacher:

No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"

"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.

"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"

"A pit full of fire."

"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"

"No, sir."

"What must you do to avoid it?"

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: "I must keep in good health and not die.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

 Wouldn't it be nice to be able to voice your opinion without judgement or feeling the freedom to do so? I can almost remember what that felt like to think in that way before I was taught that socially, it is not acceptable to do so. The freedom to express an opinon openly is what feels so nice to me about having a very strong relationship with someone - communication is much simpler because essentially, there are little-to-no restraints on what we can share with one another. This simplicity not only allows me to share my opinons with another person and feel heard, but also to keep an open mind to their thoughts as well.

Open-mindedness is different from  innocence and simplicity in the way that we can continue to be open-minded regardless of what life hands to us. Open-mindedness, while difficult to maintain, is something we are born with as children and are obligated to maintain as productive members of society. Keep in mind that I do believe holding a strong opinion and being closed-minded are two COMPLETELY SEPERATE THINGS. You can still hold a strong opinion and be open-minded. Closed-mindedness leads to judgement. The one thing I will say on judgement (for now, anyway) is that judging another PERSON is not productive. Period. I believe that to be productive, we must remove the person from the action that we are examining and apply our feeling about the ACTION to our lives in the way we see fit. We will never have the power or the knowledge to judge the PERSON performing the action because they come from a completely different walk in life and have been through things we may never experince for ourselves. All-in-all, judgement, synonomous with closed-mindedness, is not a prodctive quality in our nature as human beings. Therefore, I will continue to stive to keep the open-mindedness that I was born with.

These are just some basic thoughts that come to mind on a subject that could take days of discussion. I also am aware that all of these points could definitely be argued. However, I truly value all of these characteristics and I will continue trying to figure out how to impliment them into my daily life. I personally think the world could use a little more of a child-like mindset every once-in-a-while. Sometimes I think that the answers to the world's largest issues could be waiting in the minds of children. But are we too caught up in "grown-up life" to notice?

"A DEFINITION NOT FOUND
IN THE DICTIONARY
Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

Note: Just something that I thought was interesting. In the thesaurus that I used, innocence, simplicity and open-mindedness are all synonyms with each other and the word "childlike" (which I thought was pretty cool). However, these were the direct antonyms: evil, convoluted and short-sighted. I know that some of those are a bit extreme, but it's just another thing to think about...