When did life become such a complicated endeavour? Personally I don’t think I’ve ever really adjusted to the constraints and pensive stipulations associated with being a “Grown-up”. The bills. The jobs. The mortgages. The crippling responsibility of maturity. Sometimes you can’t help but yearn for the holocene days of your youth. And just how wonderful it was to live in blissful ignorance of the woes society desperately tries to inflict on your quant, modest life. Before the world attempts to convince you that the pursuit of wealth is inextricably linked to the pursuit of happiness. I just remember the alleviating simplicity of just leaving the house, on nothing but a whim. No purpose to the excursion other than the simple liberation afforded by the absence of mature responsibilities. Sure, your parents attempted to impose modified restrictions that emulate those inflicted by school. But despite these attempts, you were as free as you are ever going to be to simply relish in the bliss of juvenility. Before being dragged into the maelstrom of mundanity.

Hard to believe now, considering my introverted persuasions and general irritable facade, but I was once a very sociable child. An extrovert that was quite happy to spend time with friends, exploring our local woods or loitering around town without a single notion of how to exhaust our day. A gregarious nature seemingly extinguished by the solvents of corporate authority and the imposed burdens of modern society. These were times where you’d really get to discover the world, not society’s perception of it. To observe the beauty beyond the homogenised conformity of your community. Not money. Not jobs. Just the liberating freedom of your environment. Time was plentiful. Any disagreements you had with friends, were quickly resolved. Even the intrusive inclusion of school was an important distraction.

The simple pleasures afforded by our deliquescency was one thing, but school often provided necessary boundaries from which to gain important skills. Learning to read and write was exceptionally important. The social development of interacting with other children was also crucial. Do you know what’s not? Logistics. Board meetings. Spreadsheets. Profit margins. All of the corporate bluster companies attempt to peddle as relevant to your own life. To get you to care about the regime, despite inheriting none of the equitable gains that our illustrious overlords seem to benefit from. It’s not just the scurrilous attainment of money through conformity, but the loss of the empowering liberties of adolescence. The simplicity of existing, as opposed to the acrimony of enforced labour. I think we’d all be a lot happier, as well as much more well adjusted as a society, if we didn’t have to work jobs we hated, or inherit an imposed lust for money. Where did we go wrong?