A hiatus.

I know that I haven't been posting - and I'm not quite sure if anybody still reads this thing regardless. Either way, I wonder when people realize what they want to do with the rest of their lives. Does it come gradually? Do you always know what you want to be? Is there some kind of signpost where you simply decide to either acquiesce to what people think you 'should' be, or soldier on in the murky waters of uncertainty, trying to figure out who you are and what you want?

I think most of us don't end up doing what we think we want to do. However... what I want to know is: How many of us end up doing something better than what we'd started out as?

Thoughts.

Children generally come into this world full of good will, innocence, happiness, trust, and faith. Adults are lightened by the presence of children - their overwhelming joy makes us recall what it's like to feel that way. As children grow, they slowly become jaded, bitter, trustless and faithless - most of the time, especially in America.

Why do we call this the process of growing up?

Why does becoming an adult mean that we must lose all inherent joy and faith that we were born with? What is it that makes it perfectly acceptable - and encouraged, even - to destroy the trust that we have in our fellow human beings? If we did not encourage this in our children, if we did not crush their hopes and their belief that they could be anything, imagine what this world could be.

We purposely take perfect creatures that truly believe that they can accomplish the world and demand that they limit themselves. We impose restrictions upon their psyches - you can't be an astronaut. You couldn't be the president. That's a nice dream, hon, but why don't you go to school for something realistic? Why don't you try for something that will pay you enough?

Why do we do this to ourselves and our children? I know that the reality of this world is one that is harsh and demanding, but teaching children that they cannot accomplish all that they believe they can is simply dooming them to repeat our mistakes: trusting no one, believing nothing, and hating ourselves without knowing why.

Another departure from the norm.

Well... maybe not. Psychology also extends to those that are in foster care or in residential facilities; there are a lot of children in this country who don't have a home and don't have a family. Christmas may be spent staring out a window at the cold, just another day, or without being able to get a gift because no one cares. Or perhaps a kid is lucky enough to get placed in a foster home; but raising children, foster or not, is a very expensive endeavor. A lot of parents - again, foster or not - don't have the money to spend on their kids this Christmas.

You can help. Baggage, a foster/adoptive mom, over at Baggage And Bug, wrote an article about a program called "Little Wishes." Go read it - click and help. Make someone's Christmas a little better. You can sort it by category of gifts, by price, whatever you want - it's just an opportunity to help a kid who has a Christmas wish and might not get it without the kindness of strangers.

The scarred wizard.

Okay. I know this blog is usually about products and psychology but seriously - was there any particular reason to say that Dumbledore is gay other than to stir up emotions, remake the controversy of banning her books from libraries, and to bring the public eye back upon her as it was before the series ended?