When we are no longer children, we are already dead.
—Konstantin Brancusi—
Children are born into a world whose rules they must learn. As a part of the learning process, children always question rules. For simplicity’s sake, we stop questioning most rules. we’ll walk on sidewalks, eat with forks, talk in sentences, and keep our clothes buttoned. But the children inside us look out with eager eyes and stand ready to question any rule that seems absurd.
Sometimes we bully that interior child into silence, for its questions embarrass us. Sometimes we hide it, sit on it, punish it—but it’s always there. If we put that child to sleep, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves, especially when we’re asked to do something that troubles our conscience. That child needn’t always have its way, but it deserves our love. It was a young child in a crowd of people who said,”But the emperor is naked!”
I will love and nurture the child within me, and I will heed its questions, which may bring me to new answers.