“We Never Really Grow Up, We Only Learn How To Act In Public.”

We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

Which of us never smiles when we hear a joke? Which of us doesn’t love the warm embrace of the bed sheets in the earliest of mornings? Which of us despises smiling until our face hurts?

Please, before you bombard me with examples of people who don’t smile when jokes are abound, of women who get up at 5:00 AM every day, and of men who don’t smile – ask yourself something first. Do you not think they laugh, indulge, and smile in their hearts? Do you not think they desire to to do these things?

Ask yourself, what’s stopping these (at first cruel) beings from doing so? Is it public culture?

… Yes.

Sadly, that’s what they’ve been taught to do in public. Not to laugh too openly, not to indulge for their own sake, and not to smile too quickly.

Public culture has hidden the child in them, but the child is still there.

Falsely yours,
Bryan White