Hello, everyone! How are you doing? I want to share a small experience with you, one of those not-so-rare moments of childhood wisdom.
Today my 5-year-old son couldn’t go to school because he was feeling a bit under the weather. Nothing serious, he just woke up with a stuffy nose, so we decided to let him rest.
We were saying our goodbyes as I was leaving for work. The news was on TV, I sat down and pulled him onto my lap for a cuddle and a few minutes of negotiation:
— Daddy, let’s play! Come play with me! — said my little lion, still stumbling over his letters.
— Oh, my prince, Daddy has to work. It’s good there; I’ll see my friends and work a little.
I confess I wasn’t very excited to leave, but I wouldn’t fail in my responsibility. I remembered, then, one of his teachers saying we should teach our children the importance of work. I also remembered the frustrations of adult life, the executioners of creativity and innovation we sometimes meet there, the depression that came from these impediments, and the lack of enchantment I see in the people of my city.
— But Daddy, you have to play with me! Look, I’m going to build a weapon for us to kill monsters and a spaceship to fly… — he argued, full of stories and fantastic voyages.
— Son, I don’t know how to build weapons and spaceships anymore — I retorted while picking up a building block toy and constructing two fantastic pistols with sights and everything, and continued: — Because now I’m a grown-up. When I was a child, I knew how to do these things, but now I’ve forgotten.
He immediately grabbed the first finished weapon and tested the aim, shooting toward his empty bedroom: pew-pew… boom! Pshisssss…
— Daddy, this is a matter of time, this thing about you becoming an adult — he explained, looking into my eyes.
— Really, son? And how can we solve this?
— Only by going back in time.
Now he was testing the other weapon, this time without shooting; he just climbed down from my lap and pointed the sight at me while closing one eye.
I asked how we would do that, how I could solve this time issue and go back to being a child so I could play with him. To which he replied with a graver tone — the deepest a boy of his age can reach — showing confidence with his chest puffed out:
— There is only one way: we have to go to the Moon…
— The Moon?!! I don’t know how to go to the Moon, how do I do that?
— Don’t worry, Daddy, I’ll take you. I’m going to build a spaceship, and then we’ll go. There, you’ll become a child again.
Touché! Now he hit the nail on the head. My mind went back to the time of astronaut dreams, of nights staring at the Moon and the stars. I remembered that I was once Han Solo, and that I was also Spock; that I wanted to be a scientist and help change the world. I even earned the nickname “mad scientist”! Right there, I was led to meditate on the importance of keeping our childhood dreams alive, and that I alone am responsible for feeding or killing mine.
I quickly remembered the little book by Randy Pausch, a computer scientist like me (certainly more of a scientist than I am): The Last Lecture. A pleasant read, the result of his last lecture as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, which deals with the importance of childhood dreams and how to achieve them. I got this book as a gift from my wife: thank you so much, Love!
I concluded our conversation as I left for work:
— I think it will work, son. Just thinking about going to the Moon makes me feel a little bit like a child again.