Dreaming of the Hundred Acre Wood

.One of the great fallacies that we pass on to our children is that they can be anything they want to be. I am not talking about a unique fallacy that has dogged the children living under the age old shadows of discrimination based on race, gender or class. This fallacy of unfettered possibilities touches all children regardless of socioeconomic status, and we, their parents, their teachers and mentors are, in large part, to blame.

I suppose if there was an era when “you can be anything” came even close to being true it would have been for a tiny cluster of privileged children during the Renaissance, when the gentry were supposed to study history, art, philosophy, sport and science - as those pursuits then existed. But as we well know that was the privileged path of young males seeking to become “a Renaissance man.”  Emphasis on privileged and male. But even those favored few lived under a fallacy that is simply more obvious today.

Here is the fallacy as I see it. Our world has become so specialized that the time when a child comes even close to a truly unfettered future is reasonably measured in a mere handful of early years. Past that time the subtle slide toward specialization begins. Playgroups morph into classes - perhaps an unintended, or unrealized echo of the Renaissance model - a little bit of art, a little bit of sport and science; youngsters shepherded from class A to class B, C, D and E by parents who only 5 or 10 years previous had shared the fallacy that they too could be anything they wanted to be.

But now, as glorified chauffeurs,  they shuttle their kids from pillar to post closely watching for any indication of unique interest or ability - “Doesn’t she color well?” “See how well he uses those scissors!” - that should be encouraged by advanced classes, summer camps, and perhaps enrollment in special K-12 schools known for smoothing the way to special avenues of higher or professional education.

The, perhaps strange, image I have in my head is a bunch of young’uns jostling around on the top of a humongous water slide, dozens and dozens of slides spiral down from the top.  A sign at the top says “Take Any Slide You Want!” And the kids do. And it is often the last real choice they make, as the slide swirls them down and around until they splash down into a landing pool filled with others who made the same or very similar choices up top. You choose STEM (Science, technology, engineering and math) slides and you ended up in the big STEM  pool. Arts and music? Splash, there you are!  The Arty pool. Splash e vous! Agricultural? Splash! FFA pool. Education? Splash. Philosophy? Splash.  And so on and so forth.  

The notion is that yes, you can be anything you want. However the slippery slope is that once you step onto one of the slides - and sometimes unintentionally and at a very early age, perhaps nudged by others  - “She has a great backstroke for a six year old!” “Boy, I hope his voice doesn’t change too much!” “She can do long division in her head!” - it grows increasingly difficult to pull yourself off one slide and find your way to another. And suddenly, well if you can call 50 or 60 years "suddenly", you find yourself at the end of a long career humming that old Peggy Lee song, “Is that all there is?”

I point to myself as a sort of example. At some single digit age, not really sure exactly when, I began to demonstrate interest and tolerable competence in what we would now call “the performing arts.”  Without boring you with the related steps, that inclination led me through various high school productions, a BA in theater, MA in what was then called Radio-TV and Film, a Ph.D in Mass Communication and finally, a 45-year career teaching similar stuff in University classrooms and on the Internet. 

I'm not really complaining. It was a nice ride for the most part. Met and worked with some wonderful folks along the way with more than ordinary buffers from the inevitable jerks. However, I must admit that in my last few weeks before retirement I had cause to go over to the Design School to return a DVD.  As I walked through the halls I looked at the very cool projects the students and faculty had created, "Hummm." I thought, "Maybe I should have .  .  .  nah."

Anyhow, here in the early months of retirement I find myself at the top of another water slide. "You can do anything you want!"  Well, I probably need another, more mature analogy. You could break something on those slides. But the point is I don't have to go to work, go to meetings, publish or perish, defend the value of my disciple to my colleagues, deans, and other administrati. And there is great freedom in that reality. But there is also a sort of "option-phobia." When you are a kid poised atop the "You can be anything you want" waterslide, the water seems smooth and welcoming. It isn't until the end of the ride that you come to know the rocks and rapids that needed to be negotiated.  So, off you leapt.  Retirement, on the other hand, comes with the opportunity for reflection - although "opportunity" may not be the right word. Necessity maybe?

Once, many years ago, I asked my "musey room" buddy what his notion of heaven was. His reply was "A comfortable room with an inexhaustible supply of novels." If I were treat retirement as a prelude to heaven and ask myself what my notion of a heavenly retirement would be I would probably respond along the lines of : "A huge studio with an awesome view, an inexhaustible supply of paper, markers, large format printers and scanners, clay, sculpting tools, a kiln, powerful computers with excellent and totally intuitive imaging software, cameras, a bed that didn't hurt my hips, and the ability to sleep whenever I wanted and never having to get up in the morning. We can talk about food after my nap.” The fact that neither his heaven nor my imagined retirement are realistically feasible may explain the necessity for, and evolution of, religion.  OK, where was I? Drifted a little off track there.

Oh, yeah. The intimidating notion of retirement.  Here is, strangely, where I am at the moment: looking for The Hundred Acre Wood.  And in my mind reaching the Hundred Acre Wood means to reach a state of childlike Harmony. Not childish - self-centered, whining - harmony; no, childlike Harmony. And there is a world of difference. No, that is not quite right. There is a lifetime of difference. Let me explain. Childlike harmony is synonymous with with inner peace, with enlightenment.  It is not a foregone conclusion of a life lived. It is a goal. It is, perhaps strangely, for me the essence of the Hundred Acre Wood as depicted in Winnie the Pooh.

The Pooh stories, and here I mean the original versions as opposed to the “Disneyfications” which do bother me. But that is another issue. So, the Pooh stories are obviously entertaining tales for kids and need not be taken any further. But if you do choose to take them further, Pooh is a rather enlightened Bear, blessed with the ability to live in a gently curious perpetual present. Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil strikes me as a uniquely parallel character, a cheerful gentle soul, yet one whose home serves as the locus of a unique, insightful power.

Bombadil would be comfortable in the Hundred Acre Wood. He and Pooh would stroll along - to quote the Loggins and Messina tune House at Pooh Corner - “counting all the bees in the hive, chasing all the clouds from the sky.” More precisely looking for enlightenment in the simple things in life. I would like to join them. I can think of no better way to spend my retirement. But I am uncertain of the path.

How far do we have to go before we find the place that allows us to turn inward? That does not mean “the end of the road.” Rather the idea is that we find a spot for reflection; one that expresses what we have learned to this point, and points a path to refinement. A stepping back from the easel, closing the journal, looking away from the sculpture in its current state. A distanced deciding of what all should remain and what gets smoothed away. This insight is, perhaps, what I hope to find in the Hundred Acre Wood of my retirement.

Silly old bear.

Illustration by EH Shepard @ 1926

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