Rant! - Take a load off of your mind!

[Roll]

Quit going off topic, and please rant.

There was once a child who went for a long walk down a busy beach. That child must have walked for miles because he passed stirngs of sea-side shops, a huge amusement park, a dozen or so lemonade stands and the best hot dog kiosk on the coast. He marched past young couples in love, miles of surf and a dozen or so kites flying high in the sky. He walked and walked as far and as fast as his legs would carry him.

But suddenly he stopped.

He looked down to the ground and spotted a conch shell half-buried in the sand. He sat down, folded his legs underneath him and pulled it out of the ground. He sat there in the sand listening to the ocean in and running his hands over it's edges. He played with that simple little conch until his parents came, got him and made him put it back.

There is a little of that kid inside all of us. A little boy or girl who enjoys the little things in life. The simple joy of a scented flower or wonder of a good story. A child with eyes wide in wonder never feels empty or hollow, just glad to have the things he or she does. If only we could each get in touch with that young person again.

However, growing up we're told to abandon him, lock him up inside a small cage within our hearts. It seems being an adult means leaving behind the joys of life, the drive to become successful overpowers the need for fulfillment, the almighty dollar replaces the simple smile and the rat race of adult life takes the place of the care-free world we lived in as children.

It's sad really, how no one can let that child out and enjoy themselves, it'd be nice to shed our suits, for just one day, and play in a pond or splash in a puddle. I have to wonder if psychiatry exists only because people can't be fulfilled anymore the way they were as a child. I wonder how much happier the world would be if we could all, if just for a while, get in touch with that child again.

But as long as the world turns and as long as young boys grow up to be young men and young girls grow up to be young women, we'll still feel an emptiness inside of us, an emptiness that could easily be filled by the little things in life. The little things that we can no longer enjoy.