By
Justin Trapp
Arizona Daily Wildcat
A child, somewhere between 6 and 8 years of age, approaches his father and says, "DAD! It snowed last night! Isn't that great?"
In response, the father grumbles something fatherly, but is obviously more dismayed, since snow means bad roads, shovels and cold.
Why does the child see beauty where the father does not?
Children are so easily entertained, so easily mystified. Their sense of beauty is, in many ways, broader than that of their adult counterparts.
First, understand this: anything beautiful is art. Each thing is beautiful in nature, if for no other reason than it exists. The dependency of all things on each other creates a web - a web of beauty is what adults seem to be missing out on.
I am not saying that children, with their superior reasoning skills, solve the riddles of the universe, basking in an artistic wonderland until we shove their little jaws full of sloppy joes, uniforms and arithmetic. But children see the world for what it is - new. Each piece of art, each tree, each sunset - those things are new to children.
Adults are too specialized. They narrow their supreme child-like interest into boxes, helped along by their colleges, careers and even their style of dress. As adults gain an "education," begin their "careers" or find "themselves," they are losing something else. The child-like innocence that promotes all beauty is restricted, and art becomes less important.
So the adult, now made practical, views the child as a wonderful being, but not a wise one. To the contrary, children are wiser than their parents. They see, out of instinct, the expansive beauty that envelopes the world around them. No institution told the child that water is pretty, that snowball fights are fun or how stories are good for listening. Children simply know.
Perhaps, then, people should grow up to be children, rather than adults. What defines an adult? A job, a house, a life partner? "Adult" is a state of mind where responsibility and specific preferences overrun the general interest in all things. Spontaneity is dulled by obligation - creating stress between child-like instincts and adult knowledge.
If "adult" is a state of mind, then "child" is also a state of mind. And if "adult" and "child" are not tangible, then a person may preserve them. Take on the full- sized body and explore the world with the mind of a child - a child that, at age 21, finally knows how to dress for a snow ball fight.
I love to ride my motorcycle. I like getting ice cream from gas stations and picking up the yellow flowers around the Modern Languages building. I like to shop every week, do laundry every week, because those things are new every week. Anyone can be a child. We started off this way - silent and in awe of the art of the world which is all around us.
And when I write my parents in Michigan, I will tell them, "I grew up. I grew up to be a child." They will be proud.
