Childlike Faith in Childhood's End

Sometimes I actually feel like I've gotten dumber over time.

Maybe "dumber" is not the proper term. But it certainly seems that, in spite of all my education and experience, there are certain things that I could do when I was a kid that I just can't do now. Where did those capabilities go? Can I get them back? Will I ever buck my over-reliance on rhetorical questions?

I used to read - like, as a hobby. As in, more than when I was just on the toilet, like it is now. Not only that, but sometimes I would read two books at the same time. Not simultaneously, mind you. I would go back and forth between each book, reading a chapter from the first one day and a chapter from the second the next. And somehow I did that without using bookmarks. Seriously, I didn't need bookmarks. I would just remember where I left off and go right to that page. There is no way I could do that now. Being a college student doesn't leave a whole lot of time for recreational reading. Well, in my case, it does - but when you have to read dozens of pages a night for class, it doesn't leave a whole lot of desire.

Another thing I seemed to have lost is my endlessly active imagination. Actually, that sounds really depressing when I read it. Perhaps that is a bit of an overstatement, but it doesn't change the fact that I was a lot more imaginative as a child - as we all were, I suppose. I used to sit in the laundry room playing with Legos while my mom did the laundry, and while she busied herself with that chore I would entertain her with ridiculous stories that I would make up off the top of my head.

The details of these improvised tales are largely lost to me. I believe one was about something I referred to as "gopher fillings," and no I haven't the slightest idea what those are; one involved "a carrot that turned into a brick," though I believe there were many more permutations involved; and one was about a floating head that could only say "Hola!" and terrorized an entire town of people in spite of their best efforts to destroy it. This last story was inspired by my older brother who was taking Spanish. At the time, the extent of his vocabulary was "Hola! Como estas? Bien, gracias. Y tu?" which he would utter as one sentence...over and over again. In addition to entertaining my mother as an adorable little raconteur, I would also do characters. For example, I once pretended to be a newspaper reporter with severe amnesia interviewing her about doing the laundry, but every few minutes would forget key details like what I was interviewing her about and my own name.

Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I had more ambition as a kid than I do now as an adult. My very first personal computer was a hand-me-down from my grandfather running Windows 3.1. It didn't even have a mouse. This was my first experience with a word processor and it blew my mind. One of the things I distinctly remember writing was my own spy novel "inspired" by James Bond - which is to say it was completely ripping off James Bond. I was playing the shit out of some Goldeneye at that time. But it was still an original plot with an "original" character and it was at least 50 pages by the time I was done with it. I'd be thrilled today if I could stick with a story for 50 pages before deciding that I hate it.

When my younger brother and I played games, we didn't just play "Cops and Robbers" or "Tag." I forced Adam to be a character in a story which existed only in my head, to combat imaginary foes who actually had a motive and an objective which we were trying to thwart. This still consisted primarily of us running around with sticks, but looking back it makes me realize that I totally should have done drama in high school.

So what the hell happened? Where did all that amazing (if childish) inspiration go? When I was a kid, I came up with ideas faster than I could even write them down. Now, in the rare instances when I am presented with a nugget of an idea, I seize it like a starving man reaching for a piece of meat and inevitably end up smothering it. Now, the creative process is cruel to me, but back then being creative didn't require a "process," it was just something I did naturally.

My theory is that self-awareness is a double-edged sword. Self-awareness in the sense that I am referring to is something that children do not possess. It is the ability to step outside yourself, in a sense, and examine yourself from the eyes of another. It is the ability to assess your own strengths and weaknesses and understand just what it is that makes you tick. It's an extremely important trait to have as an adult; I firmly believe that it is self-awareness and not education or IQ that separates intelligent people from idiots. But with self-awareness comes self-doubt, and self-doubt is ultimately what cripples the imagination and turns innocent little kids into cynical hipster douchebags. Kids don't stop to wonder whether their ideas are hackneyed or derivative, or what the critics will say, or even whether or not the idea makes any sense at all. When a kid has an idea, he simply takes it and runs with it.

So I ask you, the readers: what are some things you used to be able to do as a kid that you can't do now? Are there things you remember doing as a kid that you wish you had the guts to do now?

ALSO: 1 million blog points to anyone who can tell me the artist whose song I have taken the title of this post from.