What does it mean to be young?

Poet Samuel Ullman once wrote that being young is a state of mind created by imagination. That being young means choosing courage and adventure over a love of ease. We only grow old by deserting those ideals.

Having said that, should we desire to be young? From a societal perspective, the loss of youth is always a focal point. Look at advertisements around you for every possible solution to stay young as long as you can. Youth is not only the world of imagination, or the world of adventure. Youth is the memory of days when everything looked better.

So think back to all those ads for anti-aging creams, sprays, massages. Those hook themselves on an innate human desire. Not to look young, but to feel young. To be in the days where everything was better. We want things to be better, so we want to feel young again.

At the same time, there is a gap between human society and their kids. Kids take a different role in society than grown-ups do. Kids are in possession of the youth that many desire. A world of budding potential and wonder for everything around them. An innate curiousity that can never be regained when lost.

But we don’t consider our world safe for that curiousity. We fear dangers of all kinds. Dangers exists, and while we grown-ups know how to deal with that, we don’t want our kids to. We don’t want fear to rule their lives. We shield them from the bad in hope that happiness and safety may rule their lives for just a little while longer.

But what does that do to that curiousity? We want kids to wonder about the world, but on the terms of adults. Safely. We will pick out what to learn, kids. So you just follow along. This reverberates throughout the life of a child. The idea of “Active Citizenship” is part of many schools across the world. Sometimes it is seen as its own subject. Sometimes it is seen as an inherent part of education. Schools often mention in their curricula how the little world they set up is a “Small scale version of society”. The idea is that this lets children prep and learn in a safe environment before going into the harsh reality. Again the idea that children take up a different role in society prevails. Maybe it even insinuates that children play no role at all.

So we strive to protect the owners of youth from the dangers of society. Yet those who have entered society long for youth. Does that mean that society and youth cannot co-exist? A pessimist would say yes. Yet maybe an obvious misconception has been overlooked: Once youth is gone, can it be regained?

People often mention how things “weren’t as good as they remembered” or that “This product was better in the past”. These are reactions to grasps at the past. But they are not the only possible reactions.

Sometimes, things we remember do live up to our idealized versions of it. Maybe that children’s book we loved had a hidden layer. Maybe that toy we played with still looks as cool now as it did then. Shimmers of youth will always remain. We just have to find those shimmers.

Yet sometimes we can’t find those shimmers ourselves. Maybe someone needs to push us a little to remember why we liked something. What made it special? Why were in intrigued with it? What made us wonder? What sparked our curiousity?

It is at times like those that we should remember that there are millions of experts of wonder and curiousity among us. Experts untampered by modern struggles. Experts who want to know all they can. It’s an opportunity for both to discover something. Either something forgotten, or something new.

Regaining youth is not impossible, but it is not done through salves. It is done by respecting children and the skills they bring. Feed their curiousity. Let them learn new things, and don’t be afraid to show them the whole picture if they can handle it. You don’t have to shock them, but you can challenge them. Don’t make them settle for the love of ease just yet. Take them by the hand and let them discover, and through their imagination, you might discover something about yourself as well.

That being said. Don’t challenge them with “The Celestial Toymaker”, because no amount of imagination can make up for the lack of it here. 1/10.