Life must be lived as play. ~ Plato
Jurriaan Kamp, founding editor of "The Intelligent Optimist" believes no one has ever met a pessimistic four-year-old. Children that age fall on the playground, get up and run again. He claims, "Every child has the instinctive intelligence to keep trying. Young children don't feel powerless."
"The mind of a child is vast and formless," writes Vernon Turner. He continues, "It flows to whatever fascinates him or her at the moment. A child can concentrate on a game or toy to the exclusion of all else."
Where does the child's mind go as we age? Expectations increase. Exams and grades slash and trash egos. The fear of making mistakes hovers. Judgments and negativity go beyond bloody knees to halt behavior.
The child's mind of fearlessness withers as we become dependent on an audience's response. Parents, teachers, and society's laws dictate the "shoulds" of acting and thinking.
We lose contact with our child's instincts because of outside demands and interpretations. Conformity confuses us into a fixed reality with boundaries.
Self-esteem arrives from the inside out and requires work to nourish its strengths. We need maintenance each day. Creativity, curiosity and an art form strengthen our psyches.
During my childhood, when annoyed with the adult world, I hid under a stand of olive trees and scribbled in my diary. I crawled into the branches of an oak or magnolia with my pen and journal to feel buoyant and alive.
Everything around me sparkled and glowed in colors, sounds and scents.
Inspite of scrapes and falls from every tree, I clambered back up to write. Gravity never held me down. Stories revealed themselves in flower faces. Bees circled, ridden by fairies. In the circus above my head clouds performed with sparrows.
Words recharged my well-being after a mishap or misunderstanding with a teacher or coach. I pushed through barriers and wrote to conquer myself and revive my child's mind.
My deviosity often intervened as I gained experience through curiosity and creativity. I discovered ways to trust myself and learned the words of Polonius, "This above all: to thine own self be true."
Writing continues to nurture and illuminate my life's process.
"The mind of a child is vast and formless," writes Vernon Turner. He continues, "It flows to whatever fascinates him or her at the moment. A child can concentrate on a game or toy to the exclusion of all else."
Where does the child's mind go as we age? Expectations increase. Exams and grades slash and trash egos. The fear of making mistakes hovers. Judgments and negativity go beyond bloody knees to halt behavior.
The child's mind of fearlessness withers as we become dependent on an audience's response. Parents, teachers, and society's laws dictate the "shoulds" of acting and thinking.
We lose contact with our child's instincts because of outside demands and interpretations. Conformity confuses us into a fixed reality with boundaries.
Self-esteem arrives from the inside out and requires work to nourish its strengths. We need maintenance each day. Creativity, curiosity and an art form strengthen our psyches.
During my childhood, when annoyed with the adult world, I hid under a stand of olive trees and scribbled in my diary. I crawled into the branches of an oak or magnolia with my pen and journal to feel buoyant and alive.
Everything around me sparkled and glowed in colors, sounds and scents.
Inspite of scrapes and falls from every tree, I clambered back up to write. Gravity never held me down. Stories revealed themselves in flower faces. Bees circled, ridden by fairies. In the circus above my head clouds performed with sparrows.
Words recharged my well-being after a mishap or misunderstanding with a teacher or coach. I pushed through barriers and wrote to conquer myself and revive my child's mind.
My deviosity often intervened as I gained experience through curiosity and creativity. I discovered ways to trust myself and learned the words of Polonius, "This above all: to thine own self be true."
Writing continues to nurture and illuminate my life's process.
Thoughts and feelings flung across the page or screen turn us into Word Warriors. Writing helps us achieve personal satisfaction without the need for an audience to judge results. We attract ideas and possibilities that stimulate swirls of internal pleasure.
Indulge yourself today with a child's awe and awareness. Let words race without direction or judgment. Recapture your child's mind. Notice how you feel within the ecstasy of words.
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