A new acquaintance of mine has a tailgate full of philosophy … the kind that makes you think for a while. The kind that takes time to sink in.
Pointing to the bumper sticker on her trunk,
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood
I asked: “So you believe we can change the past? That as we grow older, we see our childhood with new eyes?”
She turned to me, smiling, yet pensive.
“I’m reading Eva Hoffman’s book called Time,” I continued. “She writes that our understanding of the past changes as we mature.”
The relationship of memory to actual events is complex, shifting dramatically or subtly as we ourselves change … It is only through retrospection that our most formative early experiences acquire meaning, but this is to a large extent true of later experiences as well. We live forward but we understand backwards.
And, as we acquire new experiences or new perspectives on the old ones, as we sometimes expand our understanding or deepen our insights, so the interpretation of the past can change over time. The entire picture of our childhood may fall into a different configuration as we “reframe” our view of it.
The mother who seemed overly disciplinarian, say, may become an object of greater sympathy when we come to understand the causes of her behavior; the sense of grievance toward a friend who rejected us may lighten when we understand our own provocative behavior in the light of greater maturity.
This is a sign, in a sense, that the psyche isn’t stuck, and the ability to return to the past in order to apprehend it more richly, or in proportion, can be an experience of great satisfaction – the development from within, of a new kind of knowledge.
“And as we mature, we return to a childlike innocence,” I added.
She nodded in agreement. “For me the bumper sticker means that we can all become like children again in the way we see the world. The way children enjoy what’s around them. The way they find happiness in small things. How they get excited about stuff that’s crazy and bizarre. How they laugh at the drop of a hat and giggle at the silliest of things … we can jump-start our imagination and rekindle our creative spirit at any point on our journey.”
How true that
… unless you … become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom.
Image above right ~ Sky and Palm, Chuspa, Venezuela.
Thumbnail image ~ Venezuelan Dawn.
