by Thomas Francis Pablo

Created on: February 14, 2010

A Phenomenology of Innocence

When I was in college, I was asked by one of my friends what age I would like to be for the rest of my life.  I replied that I would have wanted to be ten.  Looking back at why I gave that reply, I would probably attribute that to the fact that I had always thought of myself as having been born an adult; hence, the desire to remain a child.  It was a reply expected of someone who was born a middle child to a low income family in a third world country whose parents had ambitions for their children beyond what they themselves had been able to achieve.  In that situation, one has responsibilities thrust upon him at an early age, and yet, not being the eldest, has the relative freedom to escape into a world of his choosing.

How many countless mornings did I wish to wake up free of the furrowed faces of my eternally-worried parents, and of that constant whisper of “There must be more money”—a phrase that was already common in our home even before I read it in D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner.”

It did not help that, due to my mother’s ambition, my siblings and I were educated in private schools and had to hobnob with students who were classes above us.  And although there were many times that I looked upon my rich schoolmates with ironic disdain, I could not help thinking that they did not know enough to look beyond what I perceived to be the ideal world that they lived in, and thus, were innocent of being regarded as callous towards anyone who lived in what I regarded as the “real world.”

And so, I craved innocence.  In the same cliché way that people often do, and in the same form that it is so convincingly presented to us through the audio-visual media:  a toddler laughing and chasing butterflies in a flower-filled field, a mother brushing away the tears of a young child who has lost a pet, lovers strolling along the Seine oblivious to all that is “unright” about the world—scenes that speak to us with the same message:  that this is the world as it ever should be.   

And who wouldn’t want to be a part of these scenes forever? 

I did.

Until, I knew better.

To be ten again.  To climb trees and catch dragonflies.  To cross streams and count rainbows.  To run, to sing, to laugh, to draw, to be . . . just for the sake of being.  To see the world as it ever should

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