The Problem – Octember 2, 2022

Opinion

graphix: spwilcen

The problem with children…

…is that they grow to be adults.

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Originally, the keyboard wrote “grow up to be adults.”

Which implies “up” is an improvement or maturation. Neither of which is correct.  I submit maturation into adulthood or abandonment of childish wisdom is a tragic loss. Children are not to be faulted.  What examples do they have? I mean, what models have they to pattern their attitudes, life philosophies, and conduct after?  [Just looked around.] I see none except children and adults, so as we train children that “adult” is something to aspire to,¹ we [“adults”] are sadly the only role models available. Oh, yeah; there are many childish “adults,” which suggests to be “childlike” is a bad thing, but this expression is totally wrong.  A childish adult is not childish but a broken adult, saturated with ego, self-purpose, greed, and a horrendously warped morality. [Not attitudes and methods children have yet mastered.]

Yes, I hear you, Larry, there are rare childish adults who are treasures and manage when necessary to act as we other adults feel is proper.  That, Larry, is the exception case-hardening the rule.

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A completely out-of-nowhere observation: [It’s free, so don’t bellyache.] Seeing a fair amount of [ahem] poor writing,² I’ve resolved that even with little expendable time to re-read some of the masters.³ Picked-up one I’d not read in years. [Excuse me, Mrs. By…..n, but so long ago that I’d forgotten this writer’s style and method. He stinks.  For certain, he’s a master.⁴ But this selection especially is depressing, unseemly cruel, and tedious.

Point?  Point is, even the “masters” have off-days, disappointing periods, truly bad days, weeks, and years.  There is hope.

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¹ Aspire?  Well, we make it seem to children they are missing something, deprived of candy only “adults” are allowed to sneak from the big jar on the kitchen counter.

² Poor writing offered-up by [previously] unfamiliar bloggers, stumbled upon as I flit like a bumble bee searching out pollen, from [respected] flowering known-blogger to known blogger.

³ Contrary to gut feel that to do so will, as some plagiaristic perversion, first change my natural way of writing, and second, imbed plots and devices into my efforts.  While I admire, Hemingway, Faulkner, Homer, Shaw, Kaminsky, Evanovich [and on and on] and Maugham, Conrad, and Kerouac [again, on and on], I don’t want you to believe these are the only authors in my list of those I respect. “Admire” is a rare horse, a unicorn. I do not intentionally slight the “old” and “ancient” masters; time constraints, you know?

⁴ Not my place to identify the author, which might discourage someone unfamiliar with his works from taking a gander. “Hard times in America” fiction loaded with disguised social and moral condemnation. “Early modern” American author writing mid-Great Depression of that same period with needlessly confusing flashbacks and multiple plotlines momentarily disconnected in such a way one is tempted to search for chapters one can stitch together for continuity. Not, for any ultimate interest in a single plotline or character, but because the interruption makes momentarily shunted plotlines blur, their messages diluted.