I look at my son, two and a half years old, and I see awe and wonder every time he looks around. We go outside and see a plane, he beams, tilts his head all the way back and points. We go to the park and walk a winding path and he’ll spend most of his time positioning himself, adjusting then jumping up and landing with a dramatic “boom!” as if he has crossed a tremendous chasm. He’ll chatter to people in the park and even break into song if he’s in the mood, dead center of a supermarket.
It’s that complete and unadulterated innocence that really tugs at the heart strings. Pearl Jam had a song a few years back with this lyric that stuck in my head: “If I knew now what I knew then”. That innocence, that sense of awe and wonder, to be grasped today by my (almost) mature mind and tainted thinking–man that would be great.