Children are endlessly curious because they are not ashamed of their own ignorance. It is only as we age and start believing we already know the answers that we lose the boundless curiosity of children. There’s a reason that we are adjured to have a “beginner’s mind.” I pestered my mother with so many questions beginning “Why…” as a kid that my mother turned me over to my sister, who made up a lot of her answers but sometimes accidentally got close to the truth. When I pointed to a photograph of Einstein framed on the wall and asked “Who’s that?” She responded airily “Oh, he is a saint.”
I find it soothing and entirely natural that Locke would retain the wonder of a child. Isn't that how the best things are achieved? thank you for sharing the full essay.
I think the notion you mention of play is also the measure of original voice in literature, on the one hand of a child and on the other of a concert pianist. Otherwise you remain within someone else's cone of influence and never sound very different from them or the multitude sharing the same influence.
Separately, but related, I've been entertaining the notion of the Cogito with regard to artificial/virtual constructs, in the sense that the measure of authenticity can be derived from the measure of one's own creative voice in the act of creation, to the extent one can be original with it. Whatever else is occurring, one can still hear oneself in the act of creation. This borders on solipsistic, but not entirely.
Children are endlessly curious because they are not ashamed of their own ignorance. It is only as we age and start believing we already know the answers that we lose the boundless curiosity of children. There’s a reason that we are adjured to have a “beginner’s mind.” I pestered my mother with so many questions beginning “Why…” as a kid that my mother turned me over to my sister, who made up a lot of her answers but sometimes accidentally got close to the truth. When I pointed to a photograph of Einstein framed on the wall and asked “Who’s that?” She responded airily “Oh, he is a saint.”
I find it soothing and entirely natural that Locke would retain the wonder of a child. Isn't that how the best things are achieved? thank you for sharing the full essay.
Thanks for this essay!
I think the notion you mention of play is also the measure of original voice in literature, on the one hand of a child and on the other of a concert pianist. Otherwise you remain within someone else's cone of influence and never sound very different from them or the multitude sharing the same influence.
Separately, but related, I've been entertaining the notion of the Cogito with regard to artificial/virtual constructs, in the sense that the measure of authenticity can be derived from the measure of one's own creative voice in the act of creation, to the extent one can be original with it. Whatever else is occurring, one can still hear oneself in the act of creation. This borders on solipsistic, but not entirely.