While brushing my teeth last night, I thought of the jerk 3rd grader who told me at seven that Santa didn't exist, that it was really my parents leaving presents out for me. I wish I could find him now, and beat the living shit of out him. That little tidbit served no purpose but to ruin the fun and take away a large part of Christmas's magic.
Economists studying social interactions literally model knowledge flows like a disease spreading. Of course, some knowledge could be "bad", catching like a virus and "scarring" a childhood. I'm not trying to be overly dramatic, comparing growing up with catching a disfiguring disease (although I found puberty in general was very much a disease to me - but that's another post...). To me, it's something more than taking away a blissful ignorance. I see the beautiful, pristine, fresh-fallen snow of childhood, and then one asshole coming to trample over everything, then undoing his zipper and turning the remaining untouched snow yellow.
There is a scene sequence in The Catcher in the Rye where Holden sees something "unpleasant" written in several very public places. He worries about the effect it will have on who might see it, as well as experiences a sunken heart as he feels the graffiti ruins the tranquility of the place it was written. I've always related completely with his thoughts:
While I was walking up the stairs, though, all of a sudden I thought I was going to puke again. Only, I didn't. I sat down for a second, and then I felt better. But while I was sitting down, I saw something that drove me crazy. Somebody'd written "Fuck you" on the wall. It drove me damn near crazy. I thought how Phoebe and all the other little kids would see it, and how they'd wonder what the hell it meant, and then finally some dirty kid would tell them — all cockeyed, naturally — what it meant, and how they'd all think about it and maybe even worry about it for a couple of days. I kept wanting to kill whoever'd written it. I figured it was some perverty bum that'd sneaked in the school late at night to take a leak or something and then wrote it on the wall. I kept picturing myself catching him at it, and how I'd smash his head on the stone steps till he was good and goddam dead and bloody. But I knew, too, I wouldn't have the guts to do it. I knew that. That made me even more depressed. I hardly even had the guts to rub it off the wall with my hand, if you want to know the truth. I was afraid some teacher would catch me rubbing it off and would think I'd written it. But I rubbed it out anyway, finally...
I went down by a different staircase, and I saw another "Fuck you" on the wall. I tried to rub it off with my hand again, but this one was scratched on, with a knife or something. It wouldn't come off. It's hopeless, anyway. If you had a million years to do it in, you couldn't rub out even half the "Fuck you" signs in the world. It's impossible...
I was the only one left in the tomb then. I sort of liked it, in a way. It was so nice and peaceful. Then, all of a sudden, you'd never guess what I saw on the wall. Another "Fuck you." It was written with a red crayon or something, right under the glass part of the wall, under the stones.That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they tick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it'll say "Holden Caulfield" on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it'll say "Fuck you." I'm positive, in fact.
Some months ago, Leslie Stahl (if I recall) did a story on 60 Minutes which profiled a memory pill - or rather, a "forgetting pill" - that eases reoccurring flashbacks among individuals suffering from post-traumatic events. E.g., one lady, a subway operator, was haunted by the memory of the man she watched commit suicide by jumping on the tracks underneath her subway car. I wish there was something we could give to children to help them forget all the crap in the world they've inadvertently witnessed when they were still too young to have deserved to.
Yet, this very morning, I saw posted on CNN.com an Associated Press story with the headline "'Potter' fans keeping the secrets". Although revealing the ending of the Harry Potter saga would not ruin the innocence of one's childhood, the restraint by those who have read it is promising in that a small joy could easily be ruined for others. So I'll still retain some faith in humanity.
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