Therefore I conclude that the more childlike in nature we are, the more wondrous, beautiful, and magical our world will become. — Thinking

Children have guardians who deal with life's stresses for them. The problem is stress, realizing nobody is going to take care of you but you (or at least not like you can). The horrors of the world both then and now are enough for anyone with even an inkling of concern, care, and innocence to rethink their mindsets.

There's always going to be someone who wants to steal from, harm, or otherwise wrong you. You can't pretend like the world is a perfect place. It's not. Though, you can learn to crack a joke at yourself and your own misfortunes, take it all with a grain of salt and a smile, and learn to be thankful for the circumstances that are in your favor, even if they seem to be far and few. Famine, war, disease, as well as hatred, contempt, and indifference for one another are all very real and at times overwhelming parts of the human experience. To be prepared for the horrors of this world in hopes of avoiding them or at least handling them to the best of one's ability if and when they do arise, is to have intimate knowledge of them and their effects. Which a child cannot. Your line of thinking is admirable however and may have great truth to it. So long as you understand there are dangers to such a philosophy. Not everyone wants to play ball, essentially.

The adult mindset is basically the child's mindset plus many years of scars and trauma.

I was fortunate enough to be spared from a lot of that scarring and trauma until adulthood, so I have clear memories of being an adult with a healthy childlike mind, and of my gradual decay into the way that everyone else always seemed to be.

Good comment. So then a whole societal shift would be required in order to sustain such a philosophy. It would be tough to do it alone, especially since society encourages "men" to be like men. So, then, what you are saying almost assumes I am accurate to say the world would be a better place with more people who look at it with wonder and purity of heart.

The thing is that being childish or naive is seen as something negative. Knowledge and understanding is also seen as the opposite to thinking of things being "divine". Basically adulthood is viewed as an opposite to childhood.

Yet of course it isn't so. Scratch a little bit the surface and put people into a specific situation, and you can get adult men to behave like boys or adult women to turn into girls.

I am reading Sophie's World and in that book they say that practically only philosophers and children have the similar sense of wonder in the world, — Thinking

One of the things that adults and philosophers tell us is that "We should not believe everything we read."

Childhood is overrated by adults. Do children think about how innocent and pure they are? No. Once we are past the irresistibly cute stages of infancy (similar to puppies) life gets more complicated by the minute. As puppyhood passes, we have to start dealing with reality which, face it, isn't organized for our personal convenience or happiness.

Pairing "a sense of wonder in the world" and "philosophers" is not even wrong. Where in hell did they get evidence for that?

The world has wonders and from time to time we ordinary mortals might apprehend some of them--but not because we are children or philosophers.

The adult mindset is basically the child's mindset plus many years of scars and trauma.

Children are very selfish. With age, people get better. Then we realize how we are by looking at others and we appreciate more being alone.

Adults are selfish too. And if anything I was happier being alone as a child than I have been as an adult. I could entertain myself for untold ages as a child, but when life sufficiently traumatized me to the point that I was having an existential crisis for basically the entirety of last year (ironically enough, an objectively fine year, while during this apocalyptic year I've been feeling relatively fine in comparison), I found myself to crave human comfort.

I do think it may seem like people improve with age for a lot of people who get traumatized earlier in their lives than I did, and then spent a lot of their adulthood healing from that, or at least adapting to it. Basically their mental health went downhill so early on in their lives that on a long scale it looks like it's been improving as they age, but really it's just shambling haphazardly toward the health of newborn innocence again.

The image portrayed by many commentators on this forum give a very grim view of reality and treat it as the way it should be or is. Lets say if that were true, then in no way this philosophy or knowledge benefits mankind and therefore should be forgotten and replaced by a different image. So childhood is beautiful and should be retained in essence. Childhood love is divine and should never be forgotten, ever! And being a parent to amazingly bright children and reflecting those qualities back at them could never be fully described in words because it only can be felt.

There’s an old adage that a philosophy professor related to me once (if anyone knows the source of this please let me know it). It went something like “Before one walks the path of enlightenment, tables are tables and tea is tea. As one walks the path of enlightenment, tables are no longer tables and tea is no longer tea. After one has walked the path of enlightenment, tables are again tables, and tea is again tea.”

Meaning that the general view of the world that one ends up with after mastering philosophy is one that is not radically different from the naive pre-philosophy view that people start out with, but that on the way from that naive beginning to the masterful end, one’s whole worldview gets turned upside down and inside out as one questions everything. The thing the master has that the beginner does not is an understanding of why those “obvious” answers are as they are and all the insanity they explored along the way was wrong.

I bring this up because I think all the dark philosophy you see here is from people still “on the road to enlightenment”, who have rightly begun to question everything, but who haven’t yet discovered why the “obvious” answers were right along.

A child knows the obvious answers... but doesn’t yet know why those are the right answers.

No one who can choose would go back to the time when he was a child and everything depended on others. And what about the time of the tyranny of sex? Do you remember? If you can get out of that, it is already a triumph. You don't have the feeling and the power to give back to others what other people did to you, except when you become a true adult. Think of any adults you find objectionable. Don't you think he behaves like a child?

Think of any adults you find objectionable. Don't you think he behaves like a child? — Miguel Hernández

I more so mean childlike in "nature" as in inheriting all the healthy aspects of youth rather than the unhealthy irrational/emotional aspects. As I find in my friends group that the most happiest of them tend to be more childlike in nature despite having aged.

A child knows the obvious answers... but doesn’t yet know why those are the right answers. — Pfhorrest

Perhaps he doesn't need to know why but just live life and be elated that that's the way things are. I like your adage as I would think reality wouldn't change after you are enlightened, and I would imagine there's an immense satisfaction for having things be the way they are after questioning everything.

There’s an old adage that a philosophy professor related to me once (if anyone knows the source of this please let me know it). It went something like “Before one walks the path of enlightenment, tables are tables and tea is tea. As one walks the path of enlightenment, tables are no longer tables and tea is no longer tea. After one has walked the path of enlightenment, tables are again tables, and tea is again tea.” — Pfhorrest

Love the comment. Then it really goes without saying that life is meant to just be lived due to the joy in living it, rather than analyze everything and breaking them apart as all you get is excavation, which is devoid of radiant feelings.

The healthiest aspect of youth is beauty, and the happiest of your friends will have aged. Also, it must be a bit unbearable having to live with a happy person. It may happen that it has not matured.
I was a teacher for a couple of decades and I quit. Most of my classmates ended up depressed. The day a good friend committed suicide, a wonderful math teacher, I left. The erosion is produced by overexposure to that imbecility that can be confused with happiness. But trust me: nothing is more unreal!

Each of us is sharply delineated by what we struggled to get past. So, it is a real skill and nothing to look down upon.
But there is no need to mythologize what is yours no matter what happens.We are stuck with ourselves. Other people are getting more interesting all the time.

I do try not to look down upon others who are less gifted than myself, for we are all in this together as this generation breeds the next. All I hope is for everyone to try their best on their own path whatever that may be.

Our gifts are closely connected to our deficits. That is reason enough to be skeptical of our understanding of what other people are going through.
Why aren't they doing what I did to survive?
There must be something wrong with them.

I think everyone still acts like a child there are just a bunch of people and societal constructions telling them that they aren't one still. The only differences between our childhood and adulthood are: (1) physical/mental development and growth, (2) parents generally no longer deal with life's stresses around us, we have to, (3) More responsibility, (4) more memory and experiences, and (5) more experiences.

Does anyone really know what the hell they are doing? Does anyone have a clear, definitive answer to the meaning of life, morality, whether God exists or not, and what happens at/after death without any morsel of faith? This reminds me of the fact that people are just overgrown children with differences than a man-made term/concept of a 'literal' child. But, most adults have anxiety and are innocent about their position on the moral scale, the purpose of their lives, and whether they are doing things right or not. Sound familiar to a child's thought processes? When a child is learning about the world, society, and what right and wrong are, there is a lot of trial and error, listening, mimicking, and habits form. Don't adults continue to still do this? Sometimes adults don't do these things, but sometimes children don't either. Children are often impulsive and act rashly, but do adults not do this either? Yeah, we may do so less than children do on a general population scale, but adults still act this way.

I can agree with you but also having people who have had a more privileged experience just adds another neat dynamic in life, so I try not to despise them.

Well, I did not mean to present the idea of gifts as a product of "classes" getting their way. There are clearly people who are more organized than others in this regard.

I was looking it at it from the personal experience of seeing how the misconceptions of the past are interwoven into my present. If I understand anything, I made a wreck of things somewhere.

Seeing the world through the eyes of a child is to try and look at the world as if for the first time - without the biases and the things we take for granted. That is how most discoveries and revelations are made - in thinking about things differently.

I think it’s worth taking into consideration that childrens’ minds are undeveloped, which would account for much of the wonderment.

perhaps, have you heard Plato say that children are born into the world with all knowledge but have to remember the things they will forget throughout their lives. Some food for thought.

I’ve never heard Plato. Where’s he playing?

I can't tell if you are joking or not

Sorry. Yeah I was being a smart arse.

Children can be very brutal but they are frank. We learn gradually how to lie better and better, eventually begin belive in our own lies. Like you can see in Nietzsche metamorphoses. We begin as camels, through lions, end as children (maybe). Question emerged: what we want? Sincerity or lies. Of course Nietzsche used metaphor. How can adult become child again? It's impossible. As a children we accept reality and don't really think 'how is?' because we then are who we are.

I'm not a daoist but you should probably study Daoism. The universe is depressing but understanding the Universe is depressing will set you free.

"The foolishness of God is greater than the wizdom of Men"

Human sacrifice is a must which is why some hate groups permit aborition. Are you familiar with Sanger? Abortion is forgivable. Private message me if you want to know which Holy book says that.

The expression is 'tosh'. Not 'posh'. 'Posh' means 'well-to-do', 'upper-class', 'snobbish'.

Thanks for informing me