Re: evolution (no Who)

[cuda340@tribeca.ios.com (Tesco Vee)]

Kevin, Re:

>Growing up can be great in many senses, but it can also be very sad.  My
>wife and I have this discussion often, about the need to back away from
>the flame of youth.  It can be such a beautiful and terrifying motive
>force from within, but if it isn't eventually dealt with, it will consume
>and destroy you.  I'm happy that I let mine go as long as I did (and god
>knows, considering some of the unbelievably self-destructive, reckless
>and dangerous things I've done, I should have never made it even to this
>ripe age), and I feel sad sometimes that I just don't feel things as
>intensely as I used to.  But I understand that there is a time to let
>that flame go, before it totally overwhelms.

        I think you are approaching adulthood too mechanically.  If there
is a "flame of youth" to back away from, into what are you backing into?
The cold darkness of getting older?  If you feel that you must back away
because of the self-destructive things you have done when you were younger,
then back away from the flame of self-destructiveness, not the flame of
youth.  Getting older is not necessarily a mental state, as it is a
physical one.  It's all attitude.  When we're teenagers, we feel things
more intensely, because we encounter new experiences and new feelings, and
we discover who we are as individuals.  We tend to keep our senses open a
lot more, than when we reach adulthood.  Many people close up those senses,
and in turn, their minds when they think, "I'm an adult now, I have to act
a certain way."  New and exciting experiences do not end, unless we
consciously block them out.  In order to find and enjoy these experiences,
especially small ones, we must actively seek them out and live them.  I
think it's probably better to remain closer to the positive aspects of
youth, than to deliberately conform to our negative attitudes of getting
older.

                                                                        Stacey