Children and Parks. Adults and Cubicles.

I spent a few hours at a local park today watching my children play and talking to my parents about the world we live in and, as we typically end up talking about, how certain adults mess it all up for the next generation.

Children and Parks.  There were eight or nine children playing at the park.  Of different nationalities and ages.  At first they were all playing separately - some on the swings, others on the jungle gym and others still on some new kind of park roundabout contraption.  After a few minutes they were all playing together on this roundabout.  Trying to get each other to fall off.  Collaborating to make this happen.  Trying new ways of increasing the speed by running alongside it, adding weights (themselves) at different spots.  It was nice to see them all play.  They got along, they enjoyed themselves and they did not have a care in the world (or so it seemed) other than trying to get the other person to fall off.  When one did they laughed once they saw nobody was hurt and then they did it all over again.

Adults and Cubicles.  This roundabout contraption I mentioned above had a sign on it, at the top of one of the four or five legs holding the structure up, just under the rails that the roundabout spun on.  7 cm by 4cm in size.  Well hidden in other words and in that all too common small print that we consumers rarely read.  My father did.  At the top was printed the word "Warning" in bold, capital black letters on a yellow background.  Below there was some verbiage.  What struck us were the last few words "Falling may lead to injury or death".  Indeed - just as death can strike us at any moment of the day.  So I thought of adults (lawyers in this case I would assume) sitting in their cubicles and having their "fun" trying to protect the manufacturer from litigation - "we warned you that death was possible spinning on this contraption of ours.  So don't attempt to sue our behinds."

I think of adults at work in their dream jobs.   I wish that they would remember that life is meant to be experienced.  It is not meant to be spent worrying about the next back-stabbing individual and how one needs to protect oneself from him or her.  They should also remember to have common sense.  And lastly they should remember what it was like to be a child.  To just have fun and not worry about consequences quite as much as we adults seem to.  Of course the same goes to those parents who abdicate responsibility to these lawyers.

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A child falls off the roundabout.  He or she happens to land facing this leg and warning, reads the sign and is thankful that they did not die.  Phew.  But damn it I am going to get the little s**t that made me fall off the roundabout.  Maybe I'll sue him!