Calendar: March 17

While the rice is cooking, I will ponder this quote from the Dalai Lama: "In children, we find what is natural to be the human character. But as they grow up, they develop a lot of conditioning and wrong attitudes."

Aren't children something else? Frank. Honest. Trusting almost to a fault. Innocent. Spontaneous. Fulf of wonder and awe as they see this world, fascination with animals especially. And music. Children seem naturally drawn to music. They are creative with pencils and crayons too.

What in the world do we do to our children?

Have you noticed? When do they lose the wonder of the natural world? When do they lose that spontaneity? We have to train them for their own safety to be wary of strangers, and that is sad. And what about creativity? When did rules come into it? I'm not kidding. I've had piano students, beginners, eight years old mind you; when I asked them to make up a tune on just three notes, they were afraid to. What if it was wrong? Generally I would manage to coax them into giving it a try, and of course there was nothing wrong. But what has happened to the child who, three or four years before, was bursting with enthusiasm and ideas?

And we have all heard of the "child within." The childlike (not to be confused with childish) element in each of us. It's still there even in adults. I remember a spring afternoon - I won't tell you how old I was, but I was way past the "normal" age to take a volleyball, a low tree branch, and start "dunking" the ball over the branch. I had the time of my life! Most people in creative or artistic fields - I grew up as a music major - manage to remain more in tune with the inner child. It isn't always easy because we are supposed to be grown up. Whatever that means.

Fast-forwarding a number of years, some time later I worked with a young man who clearly did not want to grow up. He was in his mid-twenties, probably, and he thought life should be an endless game. Was he wrong? Or was he right? I've thought a lot about him. Maybe he had a point. I think his main issue was that he did not know when to be serious and when it was time to play.

Is that what the Dalai Lama meant by "wrong" attitudes? That as we grow up we forget to hold onto our inner child?

We do need to be our age. We do take on responsibilities; we don't have to agonize about it, but that is what life seems to be about. But can we choose our responsibilities? Not take on a family before we are ready to? Take jobs that we can like? How can we be "mature" and still enjoy life? How can we be responsible and still have time for the wonder of a glorious sunset, a concert by a mockingbird, the delicate flower petals that open up?

What is it that we do to our children, to ourselves, that we lose the wonder of life itself? One thing I have been working on this past year, though I wasn't thinking of it like this, is the waking up of my inner child. I have been rediscovering the beauty of small moments, taking more time to view sunsets and squirrels chasing each other and birds strutting around in my backyard.

My inner child is awake again. How about yours?