iv_everdumbening_namaste frAnk and i bow to the divine in you... thank you very much for your insightful responses. many of us are learning from your experiences and are becoming inspired and challenged in our lives. in the first question of this innerview, you were asked what three things should someone do if they wanted to improve their lives and to your response was amazing. i encourage new readers to find the post: innerviews_everdumbening. concentrated to three words, it reads: seek listen learn what have you learned from children? 020126 ... ever dumbening Again, to the quick quickly. You have sunk deep your scalpel, touching near that raw inner space, that tender turbulent quiet. I don't spend a lot of time around children, and I think there's already enough conventional wisdom and cliches out there about how wise and open-hearted children are. Yet this question stirs strongly. People often view another’s interactions with children and animals as an index of personality--I too have adopted this barometer of sorts, though it’s usually directed inward. I know with certainty that I am, in fact, "good with kids," yet any time I am asked whether or not I want kids I resolutely say that it’ll be a long while before they call me pops (even as my thirty-third year rolls along). I think that the "knotted cords untying" are exactly that--still present progressive. I was never abused physically or mentally as a child, yet it’s clear that patterns learned as a child still exist today--often hindering, sometimes dramatically. So to the chase. I have learned that children are (smell those clichés a-brewin) tremendously fragile, and yes, resilient as well. I have watched my niece and nephew be disciplined at the dinner table by their parents, grandparents, great-grand parent, and aunts and uncles. I have learned that the line between too much and too little discipline is terribly blurry, and the hues of discipline smear and are many. I have learned that my lessons from children (outside of the lessons from looking at "James the child") have hardly even begun, that I have yet to even scratch the surface of the offerings at the Borgesian Library of Babel for Kids. I have learned that my brand of goofball folly sells well in the kingdom of the fresh. I have learned that spun sugar is beautiful, sweet, and breakable; it takes careful, sure hands to sculpt, all the while allowing for the sculpture to take it’s own form. One day, maybe, they’ll call me pops. Uncle Po is fine for now. 020131 what's it to you? who go blather from