Over the weekend my friends and I took an evening to be childish. Most often that adjective is used negatively like immature or foolish, however in this case I mean we took time to play. We ran around, rolled down hills (which made some of us quite sick), climbed trees, caught fireflies, and finished off the night by watching a children’s movie: "Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium" - an incredible movie about childhood, friendship, magic and potential.
As kids we are often eager to leave childhood behind for bigger and better things such as driving, dating, leaving home, college, etc. I remember as a child the goal was to look as old as possible (which was challenging for me being that I’m incredibly small). There was something altogether shameful about being a child. Kids are always told that they’ll understand when they’re older, as if the way that children see the world is somehow less than understanding it as an adult. I think this is extremely backwards. In the new "Cinderella" they say that she is able “to see the world not as it was but as it could be." I think this is a wonderful way of describing childhood reality. It may be a tree but it could be a castle; it may be a hill but it could be a mountain. There is absolute freedom when we look at the world this way.
"Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium" also stresses this. The main character Molly Mahoney is given a block of wood to help her unlock her potential, but as she well knows, it's just a block. Of wood. A wooden block. Which just sits. However by the end of the movie she becomes so desperate for help that she believes this block of wood can actually do something. This is ridiculous of course- but as her friend points out to her, she is the wooden block. If she is able to believe that a wooden block can do something other than sit, then how much more would she, a person, be able to do with the right outlook of herself. As Mr Magorium tells her: “Life is an occasion, you must rise to it”.
We as adults live in a world that can often be stuck in a mundane and depressing rut. We live in a world where people kill and are killed, hurt and are hurt. People break bones, trust, hearts, and lives; it is a hard place to remember the world we knew as children. But when we allow ourselves to appreciate the little joys in life, the thrills we experienced when we were young, we can begin to see things as they could be. The future does not have to be a dark continuation of now; rather it could be an unknown adventure waiting to be discovered.
