Tiny People

Marine biology, the study of aquatic life and the world below the sea, represents my highest aspirations as a small sixth grader sitting in the back of my science class, resting my chin on my fists, staring longingly at my beautiful teacher and losing myself completely in her posters, pictures, and presentations that augmented my knowledge about oceanographic exploration. During my other classes, I would daydream about Ms. Fletcher’s lessons, doodling tiny dolphins on the corners of my wide-ruled loose-leaf paper. Ask my parents today, and they will tell you that in those days, my future waited for me beneath the waves. Fast-forward eight years and picture a much taller me, standing in front of a college advisor who asks if I desire to pursue a bachelors degree in Art or Science, and watch me scowl at the latter, as if it directly insulted my grandmother.

Lynda Barry, in a graphic novel that I recently read called One Hundred Demons, states it perfectly while discussing dancing. She says: “Babies always look good when they dance. They have something that is very hard to get back once it is lost and it is always lost.” Children possess an obvious innocence and naivety, which as they grow and learn, slowly exits their body in exchange for knowledge, experience and uncertainty that spoils their inborn ability to argue with unjustified absolution. As I followed that sixth grade oceanography unit, I knew undoubtedly that my career rested on a boat coasting beside leaping dolphins, and no one could convince me otherwise. This complete faith slipped its tentacles into other aspects of my life, to the point where any doubt proved devastating, and shook my core into extreme discomfort. This faith allows children to speak the most profound ideas without realizing it.

As children, we all adhered to both elaborate and ridiculous convictions, never admitting our wrongs, despite cohesive evidence. I remember sitting on the front stoop of my house with some friends, enjoying a beautiful summer day and eating a bowl of mac and cheese. In those days, we never spent time inside, so watching me eat was a rarity. As a result, they noticed one of my subtle personal nuances, and with pointed finger and antagonistic smile, chastised me, accusing me of improperly holding my fork. Back then; I would place it in my palm and wrap my fingers around it, the rungs emanating from the top of my hand like a tiny silver fountain. Naturally I argued, what I truly believed: that since I ate comfortably, I couldn’t be wrong. Although they correctly dismissed my methods as impractical, and I now eat while holding the fork like a pen, I then stood by my convictions because I had no good reason not to.

Recently, a friend related a story about babysitting. She asked the small four-year-old boy what he wants to be when he grows up, to which he replied: “I want to be five, like my sister,” with staunch devotion. At that moment of inquiry, the small boy knew exactly what he wanted. In what one can only read as a complete representation of love and admiration for his older sister, this kid hides not behind a brick wall of pride, but instead offers forth his exact, unedited and unfiltered feelings. I know prideful adults who could never admit to these feelings of love and admiration, regardless of their potency.

After telling me the quote, my friend and I began discussing the beauty of children’s innocence, and in turn, their seemingly innate ability to profoundly inspire. The dancing baby’s beauty stems from an inadvertent apathy that I can only describe as a lack of experience. I minor in French, and am currently enrolled in 301. While sitting in class, I enjoy imagining how the lessons would sound if the professor taught them in English, and it reminds me of an elementary school classroom. This morning, for instance, during a lecture on vocabulary, she and a particular student spoke about the meaning of “un procès”, and a lost classmate raised her hand, asking for the translation. The teacher smiled, and turning to the student with whom she previously conversed, she suggested in a playful tone that said student describe, in French, the word’s meaning. The student attempted, using the vocabulary at her disposal, and although her description of a lawsuit as “something a man uses when his coffee is too hot” proved amusing, her ignorance failed the questioning girl, as she still did not understand.

In a way, all of my classmates share something with the dancing baby, in that they still have not lost their inability to grasp fully this new concept, and in turn craft responses that manifest hilarity from their innocence, like the baby manifests beauty in his. This idea reminded me of the other quote my babysitting friend mentioned. She asked the young boy his goal for the next day, and with simple absolution, he responded: “to wake up!” Similar to the student, in her full-hearted but half-legible definition, this kid knew the general meaning of the word “goal,” but did not understand its implications well enough to respond in the way my friend intended.

One might have trouble understanding how this lack of complete understanding suggests anything profound and rather perceive it as the simple naivety of childhood. While that is true, I refer more to the implications for me, and the things that I can take from the ideas themselves, rather than whose mouth divulged them. Life has taught me to set high goals for myself in order to become more successful, however, in doing that I seem to lose track of my goals for the immediate future. I mentioned earlier that my marine biology goal as a sixth grader died with my youth, and truthfully most childhood goals do. But as I stood there, signing up for my bachelor’s degree, I began an art major that I would soon also drop in exchange for a different career path, as my employment intentions have changed on a consistent basis since the days of my aquatic fixation.

The words of the four-year-old made me wonder if perhaps merit exists in what they don’t teach you, setting short-term goals for yourself. Sure, many people place their right foot forward at six-years-old, stating with head nod and arms akimbo “I want to be a doctor,” and twenty-five years later don their glisteningly white medical robes. But average Americans these days switch jobs something like every five years. Maybe to reach a high-standing future, I need to create more instantly gratifying short-term goals in order to arrive at my desired destination without falling off of the boat into a sea of impatience and seemingly unattainable expectations.

I thought of a couple of different ways I could possibly achieve this: I rarely allot myself the time to make breakfast in the morning, and perhaps I should. My schedule allows me to sleep until noon half of the week, and maybe instead I need to instill a goal to simply “wake up” and make breakfast. By arriving at this simple and gratifying achievement, I would accrue more time to finish things, and possibly head to bed a few hours earlier, preventing exhaustion during my days of early awakening. And these minor goals will spread in this vein, applying themselves across the board, and making my life more meaningful in the long run. For example, if I set the simple goal of obtaining my passport next week, and followed through, it would place me one step closer to riding up to Canada in a few months to visit my brother. This would then motivate me into eagerly propelling myself across the ocean to visit countries I have not seen.

Sixth-grade me had the wrong idea, it seems, planning his entire future based on his crush on Ms. Fletcher. Although I do not condone consulting a four-year-old for life advice on a regular basis, I feel as if we can learn just as much from the unlearned inexperience of these tiny people as they can in studying us. If only we would set upon ourselves the small task of simply listening to their words, letting them remain correct for a while, and smiling at the things they have to say, we could marvel in their innocence with the same attention that they assign to patronizing our experience.

Redefinitions #1: Napkins

Napkins are friends who nap alongside of one another.

PUNishment.

If the doctor runs out of tongue depressors, can he just tell your tongue that it's worthless?