Childhood unfaded

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When you visit places or experience things from your youth, they are almost always never as you remember.  A lot of this can be explained as natural aging.  A building may have rain water stains. A landmark may fall victim to natural weathering. You may realize that Dead Poet's society is actually just garbage. An under-appreciated element in the equation could be the rosy filter from childhood.  Unless you had an abnormally negative experience growing up, kids tend to be optimistic.  They see the good in things. They see the possible and the future is grand.  They believe the Weekly Reader articles telling them that cars will fly by the year 2000.

Very few see themselves living in a studio apartment when they grow up.  I suppose this leads to cynicism when you get older because expectations set when you are pre-pubsecent can be quite lofty.  You may see yourself as a failure. I guess it depends if as you mature and get older, your definition of success follows suit.  Mine certainly got reined in by time I was in 8th grade. My best friend Bryce and I dreamed of working at Sonic Drive-In and sharing an apartment when we graduated high school.  We dreamed big.

Typically folks believe what is old is good. What is new isn't as good.  Ronald Reagan was amazing because you were happier back then.  Thundercats was a good cartoon because you remember it as such.  By golly MC Hammer made good music.  But if you take off the nostalgic glasses and critically look at those things, they aren't that good.  You were just in a better place with no worries. No responsibilities. No bills. No kids to worry about.

When you go back and see places and things from twenty years ago, try and remove the translucent grungy texture. Underneath will be what was there all along.  Things are no better. No worse.  Just the perspective is different.

When you are a child there is only your perspective.  Everything is about you. Eventually you realize you are part of a bigger picture.  You are an extra in somebody else's movie. You aren't Cheetara or Lion-o. You aren't Tygra or Panthro or even Snarf.  You are Bengali.

And that's okay.

Just don't be the B-Side to "You Can't Touch This."
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Me looking at my baseball cards. 1993

If I had to pick a song to be the soundtrack to this post it would be...