Thursday, November 16, 2006

"An adult is one who has lost the grace, the freshness, the innocence of the child, who is no longer capable of feeling pure joy, who makes everything complicated, who spreads suffering everywhere, who is afraid of being happy, and who, because it is easier to bear, has gone back to sleep. The wise man is a happy child."
ARNAUD DESJARDINS

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you think Arnaud might have been feeling a bit depressed when he wrote this? It's not that bad being a grown up...

...on the other hand, I do subscribe to the belief that as we grow up we push away our ability to be creative and open because it feels childish to operate in this way. It's a huge shame.

Emmy Ellis said...

Society makes us 'behave' as we do when adults. Also the fear of our peers thinking us silly.

I don't take any notice of that. Just the other day while in town with my Eldest and Smallest, Smallest decided to do a jig in the car park holding her chest area. (She's 4 today!)

'You do it, Mummy!'

So Eldest and me did a jig too, NOT holding our chests.

An elderly couple watched the three of us jumping around and smiled. A 'hard looking' youth scoffing a sandwich tried hard not to smile while with his scary mates, but we saw him.

Hee hee. We couldn't stop laughing at the horror on other people's faces--but I bet inside they were wishing they had the courage to do it too.

:o)

Sarah Salway said...

Personally I think it's great being grown up, Benita - much prefer it to when I was a kid which seemed to be a highly worrying time although I can't quite think why now. We still play on the page though, being writers, don't we?, and I'm aware how many 'adults' think even that's a waste of time unless it's going to be productive, published, read etc. Lots of them tell me so! And, Shell, the fact you still play like that is why we all like you so much!