Newt Gingrich’s suggestion that we establish a 51st state on the moon is wonderful reminder of the nature of dreams and ambitions and of how, in most people, they tend to mellow with age to the point of vanishing. It was delightful, the disjunction between the former speaker’s proposal and his years. Whatever you may think of a colony on the moon, how refreshing that a man pushing 70 would give voice to the kind of gee-whiz “let’s put on a show” ambition that you might expect to hear from a 12-year-old.
And why not? Why should dreams be downsized with maturity, anyway?
Well, for one thing, experience has a way of tempering the imagination. A small child can turn a cardboard box into a spaceship just by having the thought. He can get into the box and really believe himself to be shooting through space. When he climbs out, if his sister tells him the carpet has turned into hot lava, he will yelp with pain that he almost believes is real, as he dances across its molten surface to the safety of the sofa.
That same boy, a few years later, won’t quite be able to forget that, really, it’s a cardboard box. And a few years after that he will have a hard time ever really disappearing into imaginative play.
It is a poignant fact of growing up that almost everyone leaves Neverland somewhere after 11 (and sadly, sometimes before). Practicality creeps in on its little leaden feet, and pushes closed the door that once gave access to wonders.
Sometimes our peers help do the pushing. With shame, I remember once deliberately disenchanting one of my cousins. At the time I was a world-weary 14, and Josh would have been eight or nine. He had announced that when he grew up, he was going to become a professional wrestler.
I had looked at his spindly arms and said, “No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am,” he said, flexing his biceps.
“No, you’re not,” I repeated. I had facts on my side; plus, I was a world-weary teenager. “You have to have a different build. You’re going to be too tall when you grow up. You’ll never be a pro wrestler.”
“I will so!” he said, angry tears springing into his eyes.
“You will not,” I snapped.
“Well, OK, I know I won’t!” he burst out, showing more maturity than I had done, “But you didn’t have to tell me!”
Would the kid have become a pro wrestler if I hadn’t squashed his dreams? Probably not. But who knows? It’s certainly too late now. His dreams have undoubtedly become more prosaic, as grown-up dreams tend to be.
Yet even in adulthood we have some small portals back into Neverland. The excitement of looking for a new house, or contemplating a new job, or taking vicarious pleasure at the prospect of what our children may achieve — these things give glimpses back behind that closed door. Also, what is a lottery ticket if not a passport into a wildly impractical future? Next stop, the moon!
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
