What's in your dust bin?

Well, these are big questions. The first thing that comes to my mind is The Neverending Story. I promised myself, I would never throw away my imagination and the beautiful things of "childhood" that made life so precious to me. I would never let my heart and soul die. I would not keep my feet on the ground.

I think we naturaly all become less fiery as we grow older, less hot under the collar, more mature, taking things in stride, more imobile, more set in our ways, also more responsible, honouring our duties, denying our impulsiveness, using our brains rather than our hormones, and I think this is wise, but at the same time I fear becoming complacent and loosing my fire. I do not want to ever put duty above honour. I will forever honour myself, and what I believe in, and I will fight when necessary.

I like how you said, "This does not mean that I will stop being passionate but simply fight the temptation of turning that passion into a destructive consummation of darkness that conceals all that is beautiful in myself" That sounds wise.

What is in my dustbin?

I am not reckless as I once was. I can take other people's word for it without having to experience things myself. I don't want to run into the sea in Scotland in september again.  It was cold! I don't need to get rediculously barfing drunk, just to see what it's like. OK, so I allready know what that's like, but I don't need to do things I haven't done just to see what they're like anymore.

But an unfortunate throw away that I want back is my joie de vivre, my lack of stress. I take things too seriously these years. I have lost my happy go luckyness through parenthood. I'm trying to find it again, without jeapordizing my child's upbringing.

Interesting thread, LB.

As a child I remember being upset by the Peter Pan story.

It wasn't the crocodile or Captain Hook - and, at the time, I didn't know what it was.

I now think it concerned the fact that Peter Pan didn't grow up - perhaps even then I had an inkling that there would always be a part of me that was a child.

Now the child-like quality doesn't concern me - it's why I can enjoy rather than pretend when I play games with the grandkids. It's why I can have fun with another big kid,crazyheart, about the roofer.

What's in my dustbin?

I guess that's the part I define as childish. Feeling angry- and not being able to control it and act in a more appropriate (adult) way.

Here is an example. When I broke my leg I had to do rehab in the local pool. Now this pool had lanes for those who wanted to do laps (keen buggers) - but there was also a small area for those who just wanted to relax in the water. I was in that area when this woman swam into me. "You should keep to the left", she said in an even voice.

I just lost it. "And you shouldn't do laps in this area", I said, glaring at her.

"I've got a broken leg", I screamed at her, "I bloody hope you break your leg and then you'll know what it's like."

The poor woman swam to the side and left the pool. My husband stopped reading his book, and said, "You sound like a fishwife, keep your voice down."

I've never been back to that pool since!

I'm working on this anger "project". I'm attempting to modify my stance to just stating clearly and quietly my position - and leaving it at that. I've discovered that it's often effective - the other party often seems to have a re-think and I end up getting at least partially what I wanted.

Also in my dustbin is being self-conscious and feeling humiliated. One of the reasons I enjoy writing is that it's one time I don't feel self-conscious. It's also one of the reasons why I don't mind living and being on my own.

I was humiliated a lot as a child. To this day, I tend to avoid situations where I think I might experience humiliation.

  The child is father of the man. (and woman!)

To me, I see "childish things" as black and white, reductionistic, judgemental, frightened, and self-centred.  To put these things away is to become spiritually mature.  You understand that you don't or can't have all the easy answers and that's ok.  You can live with the ambiguities and hold things lightly.

As for where I am on this path, that's another story........

To use a bit of shorthand from others - I'm with her.

I think we - the collective we, because whether we accept it or not the village does raise a child - sometimes struggle with what is childish and what is not and because of this end up doing our children a disservice.  We miss what is wise in children and children - including ourselves - then let that innate wisdom go and emulate what is presented as adulthood.

Elanorgold hit it in on the head when she wrote losing her  joie de vivre.  I don't know who came up with the idea that a sign of adulthood is that one is supposed to take everything so seriously - personally I blame the Puritans.  As I spend more time with the elderly I have discovered that this is a notion that is often discarded on the dustbin of experience by the most healthy and vibrant of the aged.  I also think this is why some grandparents are so much more fun, and therefore wiser, than parents ;-)

If one looks at the wisdom of children - and these days one must look at the very young because the misconceptions of what is adult behaviour have infected the average 10 year old - is an ability to quickly let go of the things that squash joy.  A small child can see wonder in an ant crawling across the floor - an adult sees a bug that needs to be eradicated.  A child can take a cardboard box and turn it into a race car or space ship - the adult dumps it in the landfill.   A child is just as likely, maybe more likely, to love a scruffy old teddy bear or shredded blanket than a sparkling new model because they know the intrinsic value of something well loved.

It is the self proclaimed adult - oft with the best intentions - that robs that small child of those skills.  What has been defined as childish and adult throughout the millenias has become skewed.  Values that I believe are being recommended in that passage are being tossed on the dustbin and the ones retained are the truly infantile.

Faith, hope and love; the things the passage tells us to hold on to and, without implicitly saying so, the things we should be passing onto our children so they can grow to be healthy adults.  But are these being passed on?

LB

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

     James Baldwin

LB,

Isn't that the truth! And consider all the other role models for our children. Is anger, hate , and fear of the significant other ovewhelming to those who have not been taught to use the gifts given: caring and ability towards thought?

Instead we just say we already know it all ... in error as seconde tier gods. Check out WEBSTER's definition of Dae Mon (light swelling, singularity?). Do children of leser Gods grow into another tier of existence ... another dimension? That would really screw things up (Scrooged) for those that think Heaven and Hell are just more of the same instead of opposing side of the sole of existance ... the mind separated and fallen to the dirt  for classes in Brae Mon ism ... life is a learning experience?

Some say such a perspective is sinful! perhaps it is without a balancing care of all that is. Thios a funny way of grow'n eh ... the Nui-Tiyes giggle ... as mankind learns about the flaws in our linguistic nature ... nothing translates perfectly to a second-rate God! They wish it their way even though they haven't done the work of learning all the flaws ... futuristic story eh ... or just another's dimension of the Black hole we encountered ... subliminal space of the soul denied as we focus on spirit? The essence will always be here ... the significant other changes according to the proffered intelligence on the matter ... like a bunch of grapes to the Muse ... Mos-ESS? Is that wrath I see on the page ... to learn from ... not about?

Love the reference to Peter Pan. I loved Peter Pan as a kid. I wanted so bad to fly to Neverland. I stood out on the lawn at night and looked up at the stars and tried to see where it was. I didn't want to grow up. I thought that if I could only find a pixie, I could go, or maybe I could find another potion to make me fly, and my #1 wish was to be magic and fly. To fly with Peter amongst the stars, that would be heaven.

I remember once in the car when I was a kid, mom and dad in the front, and I had something to say and my dad told me to be quiet because I was just a kid and I didn't know. But he was dead wrong. I knew something he didn't know, he had forgotten, and I was so mad. What I knew was everything, it was sooo important, I had the secret of existance, that's how I remember it. I was trying to explain it. I wanted to hold onto that precous knowledge forever, but somehow I lost it. I'm sad still that I can't remember it. What did I know? I knew something. So I tread lightly when my son has things to say, maybe he can remind me of what I forgot. I know he has wisdom.

The first time I can remember having a good laugh was when, as a child, I attended church with my Nana.

The minister farted in the middle of a prayer and Nana and I got an attack of the giggles. I can see us now - kneeling side by side on the prayer rail  (it was Church of England) . I can feel Nana's hand patting my wrist, and saying, "Shh. Don't look at me - I won't be able to stop."

A Nana who knows how to laugh is one of life's treasures.

My dustbin has spite in it. I used to lose myself and forget myself in that one. Someone would anger me or upset me and I would work hard to annoy them. It had roots in childhood when I was the most spiteful thing you ever came upon. It was my will trying hard not to be broken one old man once said. I could not be meek or weak. I also wondered where justice was and that was my way of making it exist in the world. I also thought if I could show them how it felt they would understand and apologize.

So, I did not use my head to think with I just knew how to use my heart to feel with. I lashed out at strangers and loved ones differently. Strangers got anger and rudeness and abrasiveness. Loved ones got the silent treatment or the cold shoulder.

It went in the dustbin when I started to forgive and to quit being so proud and tried humble on for size and more often.

That was my childish thing, and though I put it away,  I do not resent it. It likely kept me alive, just out of spite   LOL.

Perhaps J'sous, the Light of God lives on in spite of the darkness of mankind ... in another city-sttate ... beyond the physical realm ... the darkness of the mind ... like a heavenly night when yah can't see all the jerks around yah. Is that like setting a shimmer to the mind ... learning of the hellish state in this time, place and Light of situation ... mostly pure will in vast conflict?

That's because no one has learned the value of co-operation and the Roue's of Share'n!

Isn't that the Shiites! They get you in the end ... if only for fertilizer on the subject of how "not' to duet alone! There's only one way to get screwed up here ... that's with someone who will fasten you (screw you down on your word)! That's your intimate Buddha within ... shemen ... carries your thoughts on ... to another place ...