Childlikeness and youthfulness do not die, as we are taught by society, but they are ways of being that transform and take on new shapes as we age, evolving and blooming over time into more powerful energies throughout the years. As we grow older, we may experience the end of childhood and then the loss of youth each like one death of oneself after another. I experienced them as deaths myself, until I made a realization: as time comes to pass with age, we can come to understand childlikeness and youthfulness at a deeper level, not only skin-deep but spiritually. We can live out these energies more fully, and appreciate them more consciously with a mature awareness. The spirit of childlikeness and youthfulness can age just like fine wine with experience and wisdom.
I learned that society’s belief in the death of childlikeness and youthfulness as we age is itself as an immature idea masquerading as maturity. It creates an unnecessarily dour and bland sort of energy that is unconducive to a healthy and thriving adult life. When society takes life too seriously, it is really about putting up a façade of a responsible adult life, rather than about genuinely being responsible. If energy is being sucked further and further into this façade, there will be no energy left to be authentically responsible or live a full adult life. A truly realized adult life will learn the value of having a youthful lightness in spirit, for that allows one to have the energy to do things.
The cultivation of childlikeness and youthfulness can be a lifelong journey. As with any lifelong journey, we tend to start with simplistic understandings before creating more nuanced, deeper ones. In the beginning of adulthood, our understanding can be black-and-white: childlikeness and youthfulness are for children and the young, but not for us as adults, so we must quit them. According to this view, childlikeness and youthfulness must die to make room for the seriousness of adult life.
With age and greater wisdom, we may come to a more nuanced, deeper understanding of childlikeness and youthfulness. For instance, we can learn to differentiate between “childlikeness” and “childishness,” or healthy and unhealthy aspects of the Inner Child. The unhealthy Inner Child is what we can describe as “childishness.” When one is childish, all healthy adultlike qualities are neglected in pursuit of acting out in a self-centered and irresponsible way. It is reactive rejection of adulthood and of the lifelong quest of personal growth through regression in one’s development.
Someone can act excessively “adult” in a childish manner: this can be found in displays of power and dominance rather than real leadership, material acquisition rather than self-knowledge—anywhere where people are keener to display their maturity rather than cultivate their maturity. We can differentiate between putting on the airs of responsibility from an authentically responsible attitude.
On the other hand, the healthy Inner Child is what we can call “childlikeness.” Childlikeness is valuable regardless of any age as its energy possesses an eternal truth and wisdom. This includes creativity, playfulness, openness, and enthusiasm. It negates the unnecessary false airs of maturity, burdened onto us by society, that do not provide a meaningful life. This version does not negate adultlike qualities that are conducive to life, like caretaking, responsibility, and commitment. In fact, childlikeness can add fuel to a person’s adult life, such as using creativity, a childlike trait, by playfully integrating qualities of the Inner Child with the Inner Old Wisewoman or Wiseman into one sense of selfhood.
A great example of this is the Laughing Buddha or Fat Buddha, as he is known in the West, whose childlike jovial nature mixed well with a mature sense of generosity for others, and his childlike energy certainly propelled his giving and nurturing nature. He renounced superficial adultlike traits that he felt did not serve him, like the pursuit of wealth and fame, and lived a free and spontaneous life full of good humor and fun. Even with nothing, he had a lot to give through his spirit and his acts of kindness. I had found him particularly inspiring these days, because he made me realize I did not have to give up a childlike nature to be mature; if anything, his childlikeness exemplified maturity in its highest form.
