Sunrise With Schubert: February 11, 2018

Sometimes, if I try hard, I can remember when I used to hate Mondays. I was lucky in my professional life for having interesting jobs. Some jobs I held before then didn’t particularly differentiate one day of the week from another. I never, as an adult, experienced the dread that some folks have of starting back to work after the weekend.

I hated Mondays when I was in grade school. I do remember that. Weekends were a glorious time then. We only had our little “postage-stamp” corner of the world to play in, but to us it was a vast place of unexplored wilderness, infinite opportunities, and constant joy.

We never, absent rain, storms, or catastrophes, considered spending the weekend indoors. There were hideouts to build, squirrels to hunt, chances to show we were good at sports, and all sorts of mischievous pranks to plan on an unsuspecting adult world.

I don’t know how we would have behaved had we owned operative cell phones. More than likely, we would have turned our attention away from the wondrous world of adventure and toward the tiny screen offering the opportunity for instant and effortless communication. I don’t know.

We had much more freedom to wander around in our seemingly vast world. Kids these days are brought into a seemingly hostile and dangerous world. I have read that it really isn’t more dangerous than in past for middle-class white kids. I have read the opposite. The truth is probably somewhere in between and available if we were to spend the effort in searching for it. But, we learn more each day how the truth is not a trusted ally for many of those among us.

We, back in the day, learned truth the hard way. If you run too fast, you will fall down. If you taunt a bully, he will whip your ass. If you cut down a tree that’s too big, you won’t be able to drag it home and make a basketball goal with it. If you take your bicycle apart, you may not be able to reassemble it. If you climb too high, you may be incapacitated by fear and find it hard to get down. Some kids have more natural talent at specific endeavors than you. Some have your abilities for that same endeavor, but work harder at it. If you compete with either, you will lose. You won’t get a trophy. You will, however, never discover either your own limitations or talents unless you try.

It also teaches one that working at things you aren’t particularly good at can be useful, if working at them makes you smile.

I like to think that when the indispensable understanding of cause and effect is learned from play, it stays with a person longer and is much more efficacious than when learned from a computer game or a talking head on the television. I further think that when play is unregulated and adult-free, it better teaches one to deal with the unfair, random, and unpredictable forces that shape our lives.

Just my opinions, and I’m sticking to them. Feel free to share your own. Doing so in a civilized matter leads to a more harmonious society, don’t you think?

Yay. Yay. Another day!