A Loss of Innocence
Ignorance is Bliss is a common phrase to be heard. It is also regularly stated that the only innocent people in this world are the children. Taking it a step farther, if Knowledge is Power, and if Ignorance is Bliss, doesn’t that support the notion that as we mature, gain power and knowledge of the world around us, that we fall more and more into guilt.
Little by little, we all lose our innocence; we all become corrupted by the society around us. We learn about sin, racism, sex, violence, deception, selfishness, jealousy and more. There is no escaping it. And the worst thing of it all is that we all know it, and yet we just accept the harsh reality of things, and knowingly perform actions that contribute to the imbalance in the world, because we have learned to work with knowledgeable intentions, because Knowledge is Power. The worst thing of it all is when our conscious decision making skills begin to influence our second nature, causing us to perpetuate a loss of innocence to all those around us.
Throughout my life, and everyone else’s, there are distinct moments that can be looked back on to explain the loss of various forms of innocence. I can distinctly remember my first major loss of innocence. I was in either kindergarten or first grade, playing with my friend Scott Tucker across the creek, and he told me something that went against everything my parents all they had ever told me. I adamantly fought what he was trying to tell me, but he kept on arguing his point, and I couldn’t help but to believe what he was saying, converting me to his side of reality. I became furious! I couldn’t believe my parents had deceived me. All my life, they placed my faith in false idols. It was in this way that I had my first major loss of innocence…I had learned the quality of deception. I left his home, jumped the creek, and ran as fast as I could back to my dad and screamed at him,
THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY!!! AND SANTA CLAUSE ISN’T REAL EITHER!!!
It’s sad really; so many children in this world are brought up to believe in something wonderful, something that is happy, good, loving, generous, and then…we all are subjected the brutal reality that there is no such person. And so our descent begins. Now, if this experience couldn’t be any worse, I not only had to learn about being the victim of deception, but I had to learn the ability to lie, and knowingly allow someone to be fooled. This I remember sharply as well. It was at the end of our conversation, once I had managed to stop crying and yelling, that my dad asked me to not tell my little brother. He wanted me to lie; he wanted me see him smile and glow on Christmas morning and sit there subjected to the hypocrisy of the whole situation.
But it didn’t stop there, Oh No! As we were coming up on Christmas, my mom took my brother and me to see Santa at the mall. I had to keep up appearances ya know. I stood there waiting in line with my brother, looking at all the kids around me with there excitement and smiles, and I truly began to understand the characteristic of jealousy. I wanted what they had; I wanted Santa to be real; I wanted to be happy like that…but I wasn’t. I had lost my innocent ignorance of the truth, where I had once been in bliss.
This one secret shattered my world, and I then developed resentment of my unfair predicament. My innocence continued to be flushed away while I was standing in that line. All of a sudden, I selfishly wanted to scream out to everyone there that there was no Santa, and that the guy up there was just a big faker! I wanted vengeance; I wanted all of them to experience the crushing blow of reality. Sure, I could’ve argued that it was their right to know the truth, but in all actuality, I just wanted them to hurt like I did. It wasn’t fair!
Then all of a sudden, on Christmas Eve, I realized the worst horror of all. I learned that my dad, my role model, was not only deceiving my brother and me, but every child on my mom’s side of the family. Every year, we had a big Christmas Eve party at my aunt’s house…and within all of the people there, there was exactly one white person there: my dad. I’m surprised that I never noticed it before, but when Santa showed up at the door to pass out presents, my dad was never around…but I was just a kid excited to get presents from the Real Santa. So when it came to that time of night, and I saw my dad walk into the house with a red suit and fake beard, my heart sank just that much more.
I’m not sure if it was because I expressed my anger about the whole situation, but the next year, Santa became and Indian…with a big white beard and a pillow to stuff his belly. Santa got a tan, said my extended uncle, as he joked his way through the next Christmas. And then the magic was gone. In retrospect, my dad was the perfect Santa. I white, jolly, filled out man that could put on a wonderfully charismatic and believable Santa…even if he couldn’t pronounce half of the Indian names there correctly.
When I went back to school after the Christmas break in January, I realized how big of a liar I had been in the previous two years. I would go into show and tell and brag about how Santa always came to see my family before he left to pass out presents in the night…and because no one else had this tradition, they would actually believe me and ask if I could bring them the next year. I actually tried to bring my best friend once, but our parents said no.
I look back on how crushing the experience was for me, and I have to wonder why we do this to our children. Why to we have to have a fat man and some reindeer to spread the spirit of Christmas? It’s wrong! It does nothing but hurt in the end.
However, I’m sure that I’ll do the same thing to my children, because the joy that children get from believing in Santa is immeasurable. I imagine that’s what it is. And I imagine that is what all parents use to justify this deception. However, I can’t help but wonder if subconsciously, we’re still bitter about the whole experience, and do it for some redirected revenge.
…I can’t believed I baked cookies for my dad every year