Entertainment is key at every stage of our lives, because it helps us understand reality from an indirect angle, as a sign of change, empathy or reflection. However – unless we dedicate ourselves to it – most of the time in front of the screens was in childhood, when the biggest concern was how we were going to spend the day, or what cartoon or program we would represent when playing with our little friends
Now, with Children’s Day just around the corner, it stands to reason to think back to who we were in the early formative years, and what products of pop culture raised us. Because although adult figures played a key role in our education, also the favorite programs gave us an idea of how to behave or the key issues of morality, friendship or behavioral values. It is not for nothing that children’s programs have, almost for the most part, simple plots with morals about everyday life.
Today, the programs of yesteryear are an ideal vehicle to nurture an engine that could have been broken when we grew up: our dreams. It was common, for example, to want to be a Jedi Knight after seeing the movies of Star Wars and spend hours imagining alternate stories with the toys at our disposal. Most adults are not influenced by these adventures to choose a career later on, but these types of odysseys did inspire us at some point, making us believe that anything would be ours, no matter how many obstacles there were in the way to achieve it. Then the bills arrive, the existential doubts or the children and that illusion can crumble in front of our eyes, because from a certain age we can give up and never fulfill the desires for all the defeats. Or maybe it’s a matter of rethinking the goals to something easier, more realistic. However, turning to see the toys and media products of the past can appease us, because, for a moment, it is nice to have those delusions of grandeur, where the most important thing was to dream and create.
I am a faithful believer that each person has an inner child, which they can feed with their favorite hobby. Or there are those who do dare to dedicate themselves to imagining, even though it may involve several years of uncertainty. However, letting yourself be carried away by dreams, and having the illusion, even if it seems crazy, to fulfill them, will always be a gift for the spirit. When we were children, we did not expect to be grown up. Now, we just want to be small again. But the secret is in this: there are always ways to, even for a few moments, feel as lively or imaginative as children. As long as we do things for our happiness, that feeling can return. And all thanks to those movies, series, books and toys that had the power to transport us to better places and make us believe in the seemingly impossible.
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