Peter Pan Learns A Little
it all amounts to something
Programming note: I have a wild work schedule this week so it’s pretty likely there will be no newsletter next week. Maybe there will be! But…probably not. There should be one the week after, if all goes well.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled sentimental Sunday.
I don’t think anyone wants to grow up. “I won’t grow up,” says Peter Pan. He doesn’t want to and we, generally, agree. We don’t want to grow up in the real world way anyway. Maybe in the television-version way, the “I can eat cake for breakfast” way, the “I can stay up as late as I want” way. Maybe in the, “When I’m big, I’ll know everything way.” Not in the bills, making decisions, body aches kind of way.
The thing I’m relatively sure of, at least, is that no one ever feels like a grown-up. Sometimes I stand in my little living room and think, “Who put me in charge of a whole apartment?” Sometimes I get my electric/gas bill and think, “A bill? I’m not supposed to pay bills. They sent this to the wrong person.”
But I do think there is a moment (or a few) when you realize that everything about how you go about the world is backed by more than a little bit of experience. We operate first from observation, then from experience. It seems so simple to say; I know how it sounds. “Experience informs us.”…well, duh. But I don’t think we actually consider it that often. At least not in the positive way. It’s pretty easy to pull out coping mechanisms and say, “Oh this is what happened that got me to this place.” But, I think, it’s rarer to understand that the good things we do, the effect we have on people, the bravery we rely on to keep moving forward is also backed by experience.
This has come up for me more recently in terms of advice. It is not unknown that I give advice—wanted or not. (I mean, it just falls out of my face, you know? What am I to do??) I’ve been thinking about this more specifically in terms of my creative consultant work. Sure, I can pragmatically say that I have so many years of experience and I’ve done this thing or that thing and I’ve learned from this person or that person. But it wasn’t until very recently that I realized just how much experience went into that knowledge. And I realized that I was sure of that advice because of all the years leading up to now.
It’s funny, I don’t even necessarily feel the need to explain where the advice comes from. I mean, that would take a lot of time. And if someone asked, I certainly would. But it’s less about where it comes from and more about acknowledging that it has been earned and, therefore, it can be paid it forward. Giving to someone else doesn’t require an explanation. It just requires generosity and graciousness.
We are surrounded by a lot of messages that cause us, encourage us, to question the lives we live. It’s not uncommon to hear—both directly and indirectly, from those we know and those who will never know us—that we are living life badly or that we are doing it wrong, somehow. There is a whole arsenal of tactics at the ready to invalidate our experience, to make us feel like what we learn and what we go through—both good and bad—amounts to nothing.
You know, what? Sometimes it’s true that where we’re at or what we’re doing doesn’t feel right or feels downright bad. Sometimes it has to be that way for a bit. But that doesn’t mean it amounts to nothing. It doesn’t mean it’s a write-off to be forgotten about in the future. Everything you become amounts to your experience. And a human being is always worth something.
So, sure, growing up seems silly most of the time. To me, being an adult seems like making an awfully lot of decisions and to be honest, I don’t wannnaaaaaa. I don’t mind being a little Peter Pan-y. In fact, it’s kind of fun when we remember to not grow up all the way.
It’s also fun to know that when we share, what we’re sharing is experience. Our stories, words, thoughts, advice—when given from the right place and in the right moment—actually allows someone else to be themselves because we’re using how we learned what we learned to allow them to learn what they are going to learn. Paid in your experience, they can build up their own. When we have curiosity for ourselves, we have curiosity for others. We’re learning all the time.
You know, Peter Pan always learns a little something by the end of the musical. And I think that’s great.
Let’s never stop playing
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