Notes of
Concern…
…Jackson Blair
The Pastel Life
When children are
growing up they are usually faced with a “black and white” life.
They are learning the rules.
There is what is right and what is wrong. What is good and
what is bad.
During adolescence many children test those rules.
Perhaps that is why parents of adolescents talk so much
about “rebellion”. Rebellion is a good
word because the adolescent is truly rebelling against the hard drawn lines of
their childhood.
The fact of rebellion does not eliminate the possibility
that after the testing period the adolescent will return to the eternal
verities promulgated during the childhood years.
But it is only with maturity that the child will come to
realize that the reason parents deal in “black and white” when rearing their
offspring is that they have already passed through the valley of testing and
experimenting and have arrived at a place where they understand a predictable
life is an easier life. They want to spare their children from the hurt and
disappointment they found during their own period of experimentation, railing
against the rules of society, and the pain of discovery.
It is, if not a vicious cycle, a predictable one. The
history is clearly written through the ages of one generation after another.
So what of those who have made the trip and have been hurt
or disappointed with the daily experimentation with various forms of living but
are not willing to turn back to a more black and white approach to life, one
that while not nearly as exciting is much safer?
It is common to suggest that they are happy to live in the
gray areas of life. Some things being determined to be truly black and white while
others are seen as gray areas of life.
In my experience none of it has been all that easy.
I do believe there are certain rules that must be certain
and well defined and that they provide us with both a level of comfort and
predictability that can make life pleasant.
But I also look upon that decision as one that can eliminate
the joys of a colorful life.
The bottom line for me has been to look at my life as a life
in pastels. I invite some black into my life, in the form of the Ten
Commandments, but I generally look at everything else as fluid with each
situation, to be examined for all that it might offer.
More importantly, with age I have become more tolerant of
differences in people. I no longer battle to convince folks that my way is the
right way.
I am content to say it is right for me.
I am open to hearing what is right for you.
And at the end of the day, it is easier for me to accept
that in some ways we are the same and in other ways we are different. And this
fact opens up worlds of possibilities for our friendship.
This thinking has permitted me personally to escape from a
black and white world, from the tyranny of rules imposed on us by others, and
to enjoy the people with whom I interact, and to love my pastel world.
Might this be the real advantage of maturity?
Could it be the reward at the end of a life where one was
taught the black and white, experimented with the bright reds and greens,
admired the deep hues of the blue and the shining yellows but ultimately ended
up happy and content with the pastels?
Could it truly be that everyone at some point finds the
muted rainbow?
