Stories

After a day playing in the world of a 2 year old I have become rather absorbed into her fictional narratives. Clearing away the play room in the evening I came to think of all the characters and places of her toys in the names and events of the days playing. It is a mad world of no real logic or reason - the pans on the toy stove were probably still hot, the baker probably still waiting for "robot" to buy a bun. Yet there is a kind of logic to this world, it doesn't stick together but there are pools of meaning.


I came to realise that it is no different from the "official" world. We are surrounded by the make believe world of newspaper editors, political power groups, marketeers, religious groups, some scientists (since science never makes it into the human world in a series of dry facts - they always come with spin and spoon-fed significance from the scientist whose career they promote and whose funding depends upon them), even blogs like this!


We are all each surrounded by a bubble of meaning no more limited than a 2 year old child. We tie the fragments of our play pen more or less together into stories and games. This person is the baker, this person a terrorist, this person the policeman, this person the politician, this person a homeless bum, this person the leader. This thing is a chair, this thing is a spade, this a radio, a phone - we use them like this.

We believe our world is real while the 2 year olds is just make believe. But we worldly adults are really just 2 year olds to the really wise: we believe in things like love and property and usefulness and death and ourselves; how can this be tenable parts of a "real" world?

There is a lot of growing up to do: the most growing up for those who think they are grown up!