A friend of mine, Adam, had one job to do when parking for Saturday’s Spring Game: don’t park next to a tailgate with a baby-he failed.
Why didn’t we want to be parked around babies/small children? Isn’t it obvious? We were tailgating-that’s no place for the ears of a child. Every time someone brought up a group project gone haywire, their finals schedule or UNC , the carpet f-bombing that would occur after left us all uneasy. Our language was fine in the collegiate atmosphere we were used to but, in the nursery in which we were parked, it was not an appropriate mix.
We have a desire to protect not only our own children but the children of others. There is something sacred about the thoughts of a child. The purity and innocence they possess is not only due to their age, but our societal efforts to shield them from knowledge we deem not ready for them.
It’s absolutely astonishing the ideas of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy take hold of a child for so long. It’s amazing the ideas of sex, drugs and even something less intense like cursing are kept out of a child’s mind frame for so long. It’s not that they have some abstraction present about these things, they simply have no idea, I believe this speaks volumes of our group efforts to keep them in the dark.
Eventually, the dam breaks and the burdens we wished to hold back come rushing forward. Think about your youth, think about when you started slinging swears. You didn’t just one day start dropping four-letter words during show and tell. You were likely exposed to the words, the concepts, and were a bit fearful of using them, perhaps, even nervous when others used them. After some time, you decided to put your foot in and test out the waters for yourself.
While your initial efforts in expletives may have been tentative, soon the floodgates opened. You had a new tool and the only way to figure out how it truly worked was to use it on everything. During middle school, if you’re anything like me, you probably pioneered a change in English syntax by replacing all commas with some profane word.
There came a time, sometime in high school, when the great western frontier of swearing became confined. You figured out in what contexts the words were appropriate and when they weren’t. You went from no knowledge to mastery, but it took time, it took trial and a lot of errors.
When you entered for college, you were given a new tool: freedom. Removed from your parent’s roof you could be whoever you wanted and do whatever you wanted to do. You could go out seven days a week or stay in seven days a week. You could choose to be the nicest person anyone will meet, or not. You could take the advise of others or choose to ignore it.
No doubt, one choice you will make, I know I did, is to abuse your freedom. Just as the middle school you slung around swears with a reckless abandon so will you use your freedom. This exploration into the confines of this new tool is neither good nor bad, even if it includes several walks of shame and an empty bank account, because, in the end, it will yield a mastery of it.
For all the apparent dangers of this journey, there’s no better a place to explore your freedom than in college. You have minimum responsibilities and a microcosm set up for your success. Graduating in May, I leave with some progress made in my exploration, but it is not complete.
As I leave, I question: What are the Santa Clauses and Easter Bunnies we’re currently under the guise of? Did I do it right? What will I come to know that is currently unknown? What’s next? I may not know the answers, but, I am blessed in that my time here has developed the tools within me to not fear diving right in to whatever is next.
Send Josh your thoughts on innocence to letters@technicianonline.com.
