Unintended Consequences of Growing Up

 Robert Frost, Charles Dickens, Sylvia Plath and many greats have credited their nocturnal chrono-typical behaviour for their success. Which is just a fancy way for me to justify staying up all night writing and doing other stupid shit. So my little birdies, today I'm thinking about picture books. Yay! Lately, I have been reading a book by the name of Matilda, by Roald Dahl. And I came to a somewhat of a revelation. I don't know if anyone has thought of it before, but children's books are not exactly appropriate merely for kids and preteens. I mean, sure they are the most effective when targeting them at the age group of say 7-14 years but I would say that everyone should read children's books, no matter what age they are. A friend of mine said that these books should be read for the first time as a kid for the magic of the stories to hit the spot, and adults are better off simply rereading them. But I would beg to differ here. I am 23, sadly and reading Matilda for the first time. And perhaps, I can brag about how I must've caught certain details that the designated audience must've missed. But what I realised as I read the book was that what I was reading was the same plot progression as the preteens but a completely different story. The script seemed to be flipped on its head, an antithesis of Matilda. While the story is written from the perspective of Matilda, and that is the same perspective I see as well, but I suppose the impact is is quite different than intended I'd say. 

For most of my life, I have thought as children's books being for children, holding no charm for me. I don't know whether everyone feels the same, but I used to avoid reading them solely for the reason that I wasn't the intended target. It made me realise that we have let the market decide what we need and don't need. And, it disappoints me that we are back at the concept of consumerism again. We let these books convince us that adults are not supposed to read children's books. They don't directly say it, but make no bones about it when I say it is ingrained into our systems with every mention of it. If you go to a bookstore and buy a children's book, and somehow you are unlucky enough to encounter a chatty cashier, you WILL be asked "Oh, you have a child that loves reading?" or any other rendition of the same. Because they have been trained to roll eyes at customers buying children's supplies for adults. Not by their managers, they are trained by us. It reminds me of a scene from the Ted movies where Ted, the talking stuffed bear, is a cashier and Liam Neeson who is well known as a action star, scary ad badass, is shopping for a kids cereal. It is a funny scene but it reminds you of how it is somehow unacceptable for adults to have the same experiences as a child. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Children can't be adults and adults aren't allowed to be children. So, I ask you this, when does your favorite book become a children's book and you are forced to find a new calling? And, if it wasn't obvious, books here are a metaphor. What makes a person stop playing make belief? I can't imagine its simply the passing of time. Perhaps there's more than meets the eye when it comes to growing up. It almost feels like the first 18 years of our life are simply thrown away once we become adults. And here I thought we are supposed to learn from the past to prepare for the future and enjoy the present. Funny how things turn out to be more meaningful as they become more and more obsolete...