The Inner Child

Dante at Dialectics is a writer who can captivate you with the style and content of his posts, an invitation to the intriguing person that he is. Do drop by for that wonderful adventure.

This is in response to Dante’s Liebster Award 2018, wherein he has posed a number of thought-provoking questions. However, instead of listing the questions and answering them at once, I thought of fleshing out a whole blog post in response to each, a prompt of sorts.

Childhood is always glorified as being the formative years, the simplest periods of our lives when we carry the least burdens. But then, generalization is the death of reality sometimes.

Some of you may have had the worst memories as children – bullying, loss of a loved one, being abandoned. Some of you may have the best – of love and care, of security and innocence.

It is undeniable however, that what we call our personality today is the fossilized remains of the child that we once were. Fossils help derive crucial information about the form and evolutionary relationships of the organism under consideration. On a similar vein, one’s general personality can be, for the most part, traced back to the influences of people we met and experiences we had as children.

Repressed fears, harmful tendencies, repetitive self-demeaning activities could all be manifestations of traumatic or shocking childhood experiences. You may not wish to revisit them nor is it healthy to brood over them, but to acknowledge and familiarize yourself with your innermost self can provide slow yet long-lasting solutions. [This post deals with that]

For me, the word conjures another word – Narnia. More than a word, for those who dreamed endlessly of discovering magic. Despite growing up on copious amounts of Hogwarts fantasies ( I’m still waiting for the owl 😂), the chance finding of a world inside a wardrobe is a more accurate representation of magic I grew to love.

There is also something else that comes with childhood, something we forget in the grind of everyday life. The things that filled us with wonder and awe as children, even though they are still around us, cease to evoke such feelings.

Living life with a sense of amazement help us see things we normally wouldn’t see. The beauty of sunrise or sunset, the music of a stream, or perhaps the warmth of a hug from someone you love – these are all such powerful reminders of beauty and magic, right under our noses.

Somewhere along the way as we grew up, we were taught – either by others or by ourselves – that these were ‘normal’ and henceforth, mundane.

Christmas is the perfect time to dust away any social conditioning. Not just because it comes along during the most beautiful time of the year, but also because it celebrates the birth of a child who brought with him the message of love. Because it reminds you to give and receive, to love and remember.

For my part, I never really let go of the possibility that I may see something I’ve never before seen, or go somewhere I never even knew existed.

I do believe that anything is possible, because we haven’t explored every realm in this universe just yet. We don’t even know our own bodies inside out – science discovers new pathways and mechanisms, occasionally organs too, in this mysterious and miraculous container of life.

Because no matter how ignorant I am, I do know one thing – magic is real.

Happy Holidays, everyone. 😊