Innocence

Remember innocence? Watch babies or small children for they have no reference of anything. They just arrived. They haven’t learned how to distrust, be afraid or even hate. We teach them that.

All through life we learn what will make us popular, how to dress and comb our hair, what cars to drive, which schools were preferred, how to make friends and influence people, which God to worship, what music or books or entertainment media was discussed at the local mixer and how to hate.

Life throws some curves in to make living a bit more difficult, but we make decisions to adapt or not. Our chemists have perfected many solutions to ease the pain along the way.

We get sucked into forming our values and bias from our family, our beliefs, our position (fake or real) and our culture reinforced by our friends and what we decide to digest as pertinent information.

I, for one, am trying to go back to innocence.

The television has been turned off. Only the occasional sporting event or political debate will require me to find a remote. Any reference to cable entertainment eludes me. Haven’t bought a book in years but do follow the reviews to get the gist of the subject. Magazines about guitars are a regular reading for poo-poo time but even that has become repetitive with little new and exciting to a gear head. The Internet does keep me aware of national and local activities but having constant connection with the latest app means nothing. Social media has been thinned out to nothing but puppies, babies, religious memes, and a few selfies. Surprising to me that so many comments are illogical or unoriginal from people I thought were more intelligent. Pity. Music, one of my passions, is scanned on many platforms but few catches my ear.

Some will say, “Just Getting Old?” and I’ll admit to that assessment. Getting set in your ways allows me to make opinions that are judgments. Age gives you that right. It is called experience.

Our forefathers and foremothers didn’t have the Internet. They didn’t have a constant barrage of talking heads trying to persuade thoughts. They sat around a cracker barrel in the general store and hashed out their opinions while the ladies discussed their opinions in knitting bees and kitchens. Pillow talk sealed the deal with couples.

I’ve decided to retreat to a simpler time even with the bombardment of information. I know what I know and I know my thoughts and I know what makes me happy and what doesn’t. A reference to history I’ve already lived through or outlandish statement or tweet will take more effort to get my attention. Make your case or get out of my way. Life is too short for such anger.

You may have recognized Kitty from an earlier controversial post. “Miss Kitty” is a perfect example of when we lose our innocence. The first cigarette, the first alcoholic drink, the first sexual encounter are all rights of passage into becoming adults.

As the number of calendar pages flash by, the question ask, “Was it worth it?” What did we learn?

Photos by Sally Mann. http://sallymann.com/ or https://www.artsy.net/artist/sally-mann