Introduction
Recently, on my way to my parents' house, I decided to take a little detour and walked down a street I had walked down a thousand times as a child, but not since. And to my surprise, I could see this street as I had seen it when I was a child. A view untouched by adulthood.
Amazingly, this street seemed so much smaller than all the others. It's almost like looking through an 80mm lens instead of a 50mm lens, in case you have any knowledge of photography. It got me thinking about how I not only thought about the world differently when I was younger, but I actually saw the world differently.
A Different View
As a child, I thought the world was huge, that the area where my friends and I played was a dangerous, exciting place. And not just any old neighborhood. Even the colors seemed brighter. You may also remember how big the trees you climbed felt when you were younger, how a small patch of grass with a few trees surrounded by houses felt like a whole forest that you could get lost in. And now, when you walk past such places, you might think: «How could I ever feel this way?»
I think this is because our adult brains process our environment, correlate things and turn the place into a coherent model, ultimately leaving no room for mystery. Our brains become more efficient at processing information, but also more prone to categorizing and simplifying complex stimuli.
Maybe we just weren't good at it when we were kids, or maybe it's something you learn as you get older. Maybe it's just part of the human condition, how we're forced to leave our childlike sense of wonder behind, or maybe it's because responsibilities are gradually being forced upon us.
These nostalgic flashes of memory that I sometimes experience — sometimes because of a certain smell, a certain triggering memory, or, as above, a place I haven't been in a long time — leave me wanting more. But unfortunately, it is no longer possible to see the world in the beautiful way that I used to. Whether it is natural or due to an outside influence, the colorful image of my youth has been replaced by an image created by an adult mind.