Pais Kidd’s Weblog

It is no news that kid avatars in SL get continual flack. Some people who can accept that a dragon avatar is not really operated by real dragon fear that a child avatar must be owned by an underage account holder. Other people, who are likely viewing their experiences through the haze of their own sexual confusion, accuse adults with child avatars of pedophilia. While either of these cases are not impossible, they are also not likely. They are certainly not what I have encountered among the kid avatars I know. However, in a climate of accusation and suspicion, we find ourselves constantly needing to defend ourselves and our motives.

I was checking out a blog by Dr. Kourosh Dini, (kinda cool, he evoked quantum physics to consider our existences in multiverses) then I poked around a bit more of his other blog articles and saw one entitled “On Being More Childish”. The article is not about kid avatars in SL. In fact it starts out talking about how tough it is to be a kid these days. But then he talks about the value of being “childish”, and I think he makes some good points:

“Being “childish” is something that should be celebrated or commended, even. Adults who retain the child within their selves are often those that are most successful in the marketplace and in the adult world. They are the happiest with what they become and with the goals they choose for their lives.

When something is childish, we should consider it with awe and wonder. Childhood is the beginning of life. It is a time of power and energy. It is a time of growth and of creativity.

Creativity and growth seem somehow inextricable to me. If this is so, and we wish the best growth of our society, there needs to be an allowance for the greatest creative powerhouses we have – namely, children and adolescents. This does not mean we should allow kids to run for governmental office. Clearly, there are adult-centric rules in place for a functioning society.

What I am saying though, is that the curriculum of Play somehow feels lost.

The greatest artistic and scientific works and achievements seem the constructs of Play. From the soul of the human mind, by force of the divine or nature, the descriptions by which the great masters create their works denote their delivery via the conduit of Play.

Could it be that the trouble we are seeing with the kids of today is that so many adults have shed those aspects of their selves that are creative, playful, wondering, and awed because those traits are viewed as somehow childish and therefore negative?”

See? Maybe us kids just want to play, create, have fun, or otherwise goof around being childish. And that can be a good thing.