Snowmen Built on the Heads of Volcanoes

Hey Kid,

Enthusiasm is tricky. The way I see it, most kids, if they're not horribly squashed, come out totally enthusiastic about life: they've never been here before, they've never done anything before, and by god they're ready for all of it! Hooray!

This behavior pattern is, at best, known as ADD--at worst, we call it "childhood."

I say "at best," because it seems to me that those diagnosed with ADD have a lingering excuse throughout adulthood to be eccentric, enthusiastic, and wildly themselves. The reason why "childhood" is the worst, is because there is only a limited number of years where that excuse will apply. I do encourage you to use that excuse well, by the way, although that might be the wine talking.

What happens after childhood is, of course, adulthood, and that, as I say, is where enthusiasm becomes tricky.

Adulthood beats the enthusiasm out of you. Years of drudgery, whether in school or work, teach you that the easiest way to get through life is to tune out of it. This syndrome of disillusionment and apathy is frequently referred to as "maturity." I don't mean to imply that there's no such thing as maturity, or that maturity is not a good thing to have, but I want to emphasize that disillusionment and apathy ARE NOT IT.

And yet, this is what the majority of adults will model for you as you grow up: that to be a mature grown-up you have to stop being so enthusiastic, stop bursting into tears over terrific songs, stop running to the ocean because a great paragraph filled you with the need to leap in, stop loving quite so hard--it's embarrassing. Your only excuse for enthusiasm is to ingest heavy doses of narcotics and hope you don't either A) die, or B) get interventioned.

If you want to fit in the adult world, if you want to make money and be taken seriously, in general, that is what you have to do. What I am experiencing right now, on the cusp of full adulthood, is the terrible feeling of wearing a mask almost all the time. It's a mask like a cup, that carries my raging, bouncy, boingy heart within its white interior, smooth, like the surface of an egg.

It's very hard to both love life and be like the other adults.

I don't know if I've found a good balance yet. The main reason I'm writing this is to remind me how it feels, and to tell you what's going on here. I hope it helps, someday. Both of us, I mean.

I love you.



C.