Anam Cara

Innocence Keeps Mystery Playful

Innocence has a lyrical continuity. A child cannot turn it on and off. The fractures in innocence are partial. In different moments, thresholds are crossed into experience. Yet innocence manages to hold off the full recognition of how broken the human journey will be. The innocence of the child is its immediacy and nearness to everything. Rilke says that in all our subsequent life we will never again be as close to anything as we were to our toys in childhood. The toy becomes your friend and closest confidant. Before and below words, you invest the delight and concern of your heart in the toy. If you are clearing out an attic and you come across one of your old toys from childhood, it can release a flood of memories. The child lives in the neighbourhood of wonder where innocence keeps mystery playful. Each new event and encounter is all-absorbing. No overall perspective on life is available. The child lives in the house of discovery. The unconscious innocence of the child assembles new experiences. It is their cumulative gathering which eventually signals the end of childhood. Brick by brick, the house of innocence falls to ruins. Once that threshold into adulthood is crossed, one may never return again to the kingdom of innocence. Innocence always urges the child to explore and continues to pace and shelter this exploration until the child is finally adult and ready to stand alone in its new knowing. In contrast to how a child belongs in the world, adult belonging is never as natural, innocent, or playful. Adult belonging has to be chosen, received, and renewed. It is a lifetime’s work.

Childhood experience is deeply infused with longing. The adventure of being here is utterly engaging. There is longing to explore, to play, and to discover. Because the sense and contour of the self are only coming into definition, the child’s sense of longing is largely unrefined. This is often evident in the way children play with each other. Their play is never merely chaotic. It is inevitably governed by self-conscious and elaborate rules which they stipulate. Perhaps these delineate safe zones in which new experience becomes possible.