If I had known then all the things I know now it would have effectively acted as nothing more than a watery deluge being thrown on the fire of youthful living and drowning out its light. It probably would have impeded the freedom and beauty found in child-like impetuousness, stifled arrogant and erroneous yet perfectly necessary beliefs that I was impervious to death and aging, and undoubtedly would have brought down to earth helium filled dreams that were instead meant to take flight on every erratic zephyr of adolescence and young adulthood. Don't get me wrong, I prize what I have learned along the way, the good and the bad, but I count even dearer to me those years when I in my blissful ignorance knew nothing but wanting to live my life and do so big!
I've often thought that it's the lack of knowledge of how perilous something is that allows youth to take grand risks. Some of them die or are left crippled. Others discover new things that benefit the whole of humanity. And in the zone-in-between are the rest of us. It's how we learn.
This post was edited by inky at December 10, 2019 3:07 PM MST