Soon enough you get through all these things and mature and have all of these experiences and survive them and and live through each challenge one by one by one, and you become stronger and your threshold for pain increases on a daily basis, and it would take so much to faze and unsettle you. The downside with having hurdled all of these trials is yes you get stronger, but at the same time you lose that sense of wonder, that sense of getting genuinely amazed at something. Smoketh and I have been discussing that it used to be that we would be brought to our pediatricians, and they would seem like the most remarkable, all-knowing, and compassionate figures of authority. That the very sight of them eases every pain instantaneously, and you hold on to their every word, and that the care is genuine. Or the wonder of graduating into something, getting into a new phase of life that promises wonderful transitions, like these kids at the bookstore happily carrying their brand new notebooks, or college students pleased at the schedule in their form five’s. Or the wonder at your elders’ insights, because they are full of conviction and you could cling into them, and be free from all sorts of danger. Or even the wonder and amazement that the lateral neck mass has shrunk by this much, and you get thanked profusely. Ultimately sadness–or worse, numbness–seems like one long default punctuated only by moments of transient happiness, like finishing a download of a huge file of old comic books, or eating fantastic pizza.

We get old and we become disenchanted. It’s adaptive, but also kind of sad.

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