Peace
Little children are not self-centered at all. They are present-centered.
Whatever’s happening right now is what they’re centered in. If they’re angry right now, they’ll be angry. Hungry right now, they’ll be hungry. Need your attention right now, they will get it.
They’re ok with however they are.
And maybe this is what the old folks meant in the bible – be as little children. They have no self-judging-self yet. They’re able to experience first hand what’s happening without filtering it through judgment, without filtering it through the fear of being such and such or not being such and such, or the fear of someone else being such and such or not being such and such.
Little children are free in this way. They don’t sit around and talk about what moments are like for them, or what moments were like for them, or what moments are hopefully going to be like for them.
They are experiencing what is happening right now. And because of this, most grown ups cannot stand being around little children for too long.
Most grown ups need to call someone on the phone and say, I need a vacation or a drink or a fucking loaf of bread.
The little children never do this. They make things happen. They build something up or knock it down, they kick or they hug. But they don’t talk about what’s not happening right now. Not until a grown up drags them back to a time that already happened or drags them to look forward to some future that hasn’t happened.
But the grown ups can’t help it. The grown ups need to distract the children from the present moment because the grown ups need a way to get the fuck out of the playroom.
The grown ups can’t stand to be with the little children for too long because they can’t bear for their ideas of themselves to get lost in the moment. It makes them feel so uncomfortable, like they’re actually dying a little too fast or living a little too long—whatever it is, it’s excruciating.
And sometimes they look at their little children and look forward to the time when their little children will be able to leave their present moments and join them in reflection. And it will happen.
In time, the little children will leave their present moments. They’ll really have no choice. They’ll get sent off to the larger world and they’ll have to leave their moments just to figure out how to understand themselves around all these other people.
But hopefully they’ll still have a place to go home to that gives them peace. Maybe where their parents are, or to some beautiful new place they’ll create, or maybe back to the moment they’ll somehow remember they’re still part of, the one that’s always been right there, that’s still right there, where there’s nothing to worry about and nowhere to go and no one better to be.
-JLK
