think outside the sand box

Childhood was a mini version of a game with bow and arrows. Little theater. There always was a target what you want to be, what you want to do, what you want to have and so on. And as a kid you never thought that you CAN'T make it. Your bow was made from the best wood in the world and your arrows were poisonous and dipped in the gold dust. No limits were included in your little game. Nothing at all.

My game was... I always wanted to be a smart kid. Being a smart kid meant to be a kid who's logic is close to the adult's. If you would say something that just adult would know from life experience or educational books, you would be considered to be genuine kid. And I sat down from time to time, pretending to be a librarian, opened my mothers international words dictionary and read page by page. I used to take my fathers VCRs and watch documentaries. I used to listen to my grandma' for hours and retell stories to the neighborhood kids. Of course, making something up and adding fictional details. And ruining the smart kid's reputation with my imagination.

When somebody would call me a smart kid my face would cover up with a huge smile with two front teeth missing. Being a smart kid, being a grown up was A THING. Everybody in the school wanted to be older, wanted to be 12 then, 14 then, 16 then, 18 and so on.. And later it switched places. Everybody wanted to come back to school, to play in mom's garden or watch TV all day long without having to go to work or to study. Being a smart kid was a thing then. Now it is BEING A KID.

Being a kid meant to have no limits. Thousands of books written, conferences held, quotes repeated. All of them about how kids see the world in it's natural beauty. With no limits. With no stops and no obstacles. Their logic is vivid, it doesn't end with a first thing that could stop them. Their logic is the mother of concept of logic. Old man said that you can't cross a river if you can not swim. Little kid build a bridge. 

Don't grow up. It's a trap.

With a playful love

Ugne