English
The idea that an adult can recapture child mind and live completely in the present without abstract thought about the act, and the future is a philosophical and psychological idea that holds little meaning to most people. The mindset of an adult is primarily influenced by experiences that the adult has gone through. It can, therefore, be argued that the current mindset of any given adult is a collection of different paradigms of mindsets that resulted as a result of experiences that the adult has gone through. The concept that an adult can adopt the child mind and live completely in the present oblivious to both the past and the future is thus, rendered null and void. This is because the current state of mind of the adult resulted from past experiences. If an adult was to completely shut off his mind to the past the current state of mind of this given adult would hold little to no meaning at all. This would mean that the adult is turning a blind eye to all factors that led to the development of that adult to the point they are at in the present. The experiences can thus be argued as the defining factor of the mindset of any given adult. Given experiences the human mind naturally wanders off into the possibilities of the future and to better prospects in the times ahead. To deprive the human mind of these two aspects of it functionality would be to effectively shut down the human mind or let it and off without a sense of direction or location or even proximity.
Images of early childhood show that the mind of a child is completely free from interpretation. This is because, at early childhood, the children live entirely in the present. There is little to no synthesis of the physical environment that a child is exposed to. If the child sees a flower, there are no questions as to why the flower is as it is or why it is in a given place or state. To the mind of the child the flower is simply the flower and that is it. The mind of a child does little to synthesize the physical environment that it is exposed to but simply observes and accepts things as they are. This is because, at a very tender age, the sense of perception and incorporation is relatively very low as is in the case of early childhood. This explains why images derived from the mind of a child during early childhood are simply images. There is no attempt by the mind of the child at this given stage to interpret or even analyze the images that it is exposed to. This stage can, therefore, be described as an acceptance stage regarding the digestive faculties of the mind. This is a stage that appears to be very calm regarding the state of mind of the child in question. This is because a child is capable of living completely in the present. The past has no meaning and thee future is a concept that is completely unheard of. All that matters at this stage of mental development is the present as that is all that is perceived yet tot interpreted or associated with any experiences or any future expectations at all.
The incidents and experiences of middle childhood last longer than early childhood sense impressions, but still have little analysis or meaning. The emotional life is formed, but events do not have meanings that are expressed. This is because, in middle childhood, the perceptive capabilities of the child start to function. The child is, therefore, capable of perceiving certain objects and events and associating them to other objects or events perceived at an earlier age. At this stage, the child is capable of reacting emotionally to their environment because they have a sense of perception as to exactly what might be going on in the environment. This perceptive capability at this stage is, however, very little. The child thus attaches little emotional inclination to the happenings of the physical environment. The mind of the child at this stage starts to have a sense of perception and association capabilities as far as relating experience and seen events is concerned. The problem, however, arises as far as the derivation of meaning of these associated experiences is concerned. The child is capable of deriving very little meaning from what they see and perceive at this stage of life. This explains why seeing a loved one lose their life would have a more devastating effect on a fully grown adult than on a child irrespective of how close the adult that died was to the child. The child can perceive the death but will fail in accompanying the reception with the necessary emotional reaction as would a fully grown adult. Thus at this stage the child still focuses primarily on the present.
Works Cited
"tolle and the tree of life." frameworksinstitute. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014. <http://www.frameworksinstitute.org/assets/files/ECD/plasticity_mtg.pdf>.
