I have a fear of letting go of my youth. I am enticed by everything about being young, and innocent. I love reading, and rereading books from my youth, and trying to recreate the feelings that I had when I was reading the books for the first time. I especially love when books are transformed into movies. My favorite movies would have to be Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Cloudy With a chance of Meatballs, and my all time favorite, Where the Wild Things Are.
Where the Wild Things Are is a children’s picture book that was published in 1963. It was written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. The book was so popular that it became an animated short, and opera, and in 2009 it was made into one of the best selling movies in the country. The movie is about a boy named Max is sent to bed for misbehaving, where he imagines a place where the wild things are. The Wild Things crown him their king after the promises that he makes to them, though he soon longs to be with his family again.
I have found that more and more people are becoming attracted to the minds of children and infants, and this movie shows a perfect window into the imagination of them. I am one of these people. I am obsessed with the brain, and the things that change throughout the lives of people. I realized that as we grow older, we lose our ability to imagine, and we become more boring. We are conformed by the rules and standards set by our society. This is why I have a fear of the future; I have a fear of losing my imagination.
Max is a ten-year-old boy who is living with a snotty sister, and a single mother. He has no idea what is happening around him in the world, and he couldn’t care less. He is naïve, and in his naivety, he is blissful. I want to hold onto my innocence and blissfulness as long as possible. I want to be ignorant to the world, and live without fear of anything except a fear of the dark. If more people had the imagination of children, there would not be nearly as much violence in the world as there is now.
Children don’t think in terms of hate, they love everything, as adults should. Children don’t judge someone based on their race or their religion, they judge them on whether the person is nice or not; and even if the person isn’t nice, they don’t categorize everyone that looks like them into the “mean” category; they categorize them based on that specific persons’ personality, and persona.
If the rest of the world had the mentality of Max in Where the Wild Things are, we as a people would be much better off. There would be no prejudice, and no hate. I am learning that it is okay to grow up; I just can’t loose my childhood mentality, and be sucked into the dull world that hates people based on what they look like, or whom the look up to.
Wyatt
I really identify with what you said about worrying about growing up, but at the same time accepting the inevitable and growing up, while maybe holding on to the good parts of being young, like where the wild things are. furthermore, what you said about the innocence, and inherent goodness of children really struck a cord with me, It's just something I think we all believe and should never lose sight of it. We should never lose sight of what it means to be a kid, of how we thought when we were little boys and girls.
ReplyDeleteI thought that what you wrote was very touching. It was sweet and honest and made a lot of sense. We, as CITYtermers know what it means to hold on to that childish imagination. Your post seemed very personal to you, and I like that you have made it so.
ReplyDelete-Tori
I like that you made this post very personal, I can definitely identify with the fear of growing up. You kind of touched upon how this plays into pop culture, but it would have been interesting to talk about it more.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you use Where the Wild Things Are to describe your apprectiation for childhood and the mentality that a child has. I immediately related this to when David talked about how teenagers lose their ability for divergent thinking. Were you channeling that conversation?
ReplyDeleteLike Tori said, this post is very touching and honest. I think you used this pop culture phenomenon to help the reader understand your feelings about childhood and I really empathized with your blog post because of that
Upon reading this I had a panic attack about growing up. thanks wyatt.
ReplyDeleteI was super interested in your portrayal of how children think. before It is interesting the twe as semi-adults can see that a child's view of the world is in many ways better, but what is it that we are doing about this? aren't we just going to grow up and teach our children to be "mature" and stifle thier imaginations just like society did to us?
wow I feellike a downer...sorry guys....
-Victorig
Wyatt, you are definitely on to something here. I think there is an important distinction between "child-like" (which is what you are describing) and "childish" (which is the belief that your needs are the most important all the time). Can we hold on to being child-like and not be childish? That child-like mentality is what the Buddhists call "beginner's mind." In many cases, having beginner's mind is a great advantage!
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