Posted for Eric - Blog 5

The correlation between children and altered states, the thought process during those states, the freeness, and the overall general ability to be abstract is fascinating me more and more as I read in this class. The section where the book says, “Children travel easily between what might be and what is, slipping from reality to fantasy without difficulty, self consciousness, or embarrassment.” is fascinating to me, it really says it all. I remember as a kid playing with my GI Joe’s in the garden, making bunkers, sticking small breaks off the pine tree in the ground to act as trees, putting guys in foxholes, and even burying all but the fuse of blackcats (firecrackers) so I could light them and pretend a mortar just hit. My dad came out and asked me once, “what are you doing?” and I replied, “Playing…what are you doing?” Then he asked me with a perplexing look on his face, “How do you play?” so I tried to explain, but I still remember that day as vividly as anything, the sun on my face, the smell of dirt on my hands and the colors are all so vivid. Why? I don’t know why I remembered that so profoundly, but I do remember thinking “How can he not know how to play?” “Who doesn’t know how to play?” Now that I think about it, my father was a small boy during world war two in southern Germany, so he probably did not have anything to play with or the time to play.
\n\n\u003cbr\>\nThere is something that occurs in people as they age that causes them to drift away from the absolute free thinking the way children do. Is it responsibility? Is it pressure from society saying, “Only kids do that!” or is it some chemical changes in our own bodies that causes us to loose the constant “trip” that children are on? Something happens and this is why adults seek drugs such as mescaline to get back to that state they once knew. There is something about children, they seem to be living in the “now”, not two minutes ago and not ten years down the road. I saw an interview with Alan Alden recently, where he talked about his epiphany and how almost dying brought him an awareness he never thought possible. He discussed how neuroscientists state that the “now”, in the human minds’ perception of the meaning, last for only five seconds. So, the words you read at the beginning of this paragraph are now a memory and the click you will soon make with your mouse after reading this is completely irrelevant and – changeable – since it has not happened yet. Truly living in the “now” is what people sometimes say is the secret to a fulfilling life and Alan is trying it. He says how hard it really is to be conscious of the “now” and keep from wandering out of it. He told the interviewer how vivid everything becomes when you live in the “now” and how interesting everything anyone says becomes. It really got me thinking and it made a whole lot of sense. Perhaps living in the now is just what makes a kid a kid and acts as a catalyst to open all the doors of perception.\n\u003cbr\>\n\u003c/font\>\u003c/span\>\u003c/td\>\n\u003c/tr\>\n\u003ctd colspan\u003d\"2\" width\u003d\"575\"\>\u003chr noshade size\u003d\"1\"\>\u003c/td\>\n\u003c/table\>\n\u003c/div\>\u003c/div\>\n",0]
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There is something that occurs in people as they age that causes them to drift away from the absolute free thinking the way children do. Is it responsibility? Is it pressure from society saying, “Only kids do that!” or is it some chemical changes in our own bodies that causes us to loose the constant “trip” that children are on? Something happens and this is why adults seek drugs such as mescaline to get back to that state they once knew. There is something about children, they seem to be living in the “now”, not two minutes ago and not ten years down the road. I saw an interview with Alan Alden recently, where he talked about his epiphany and how almost dying brought him an awareness he never thought possible. He discussed how neuroscientists state that the “now”, in the human minds’ perception of the meaning, last for only five seconds. So, the words you read at the beginning of this paragraph are now a memory and the click you will soon make with your mouse after reading this is completely irrelevant and – changeable – since it has not happened yet. Truly living in the “now” is what people sometimes say is the secret to a fulfilling life and Alan is trying it. He says how hard it really is to be conscious of the “now” and keep from wandering out of it. He told the interviewer how vivid everything becomes when you live in the “now” and how interesting everything anyone says becomes. It really got me thinking and it made a whole lot of sense. Perhaps living in the now is just what makes a kid a kid and acts as a catalyst to open all the doors of perception.