Loss Of Innocence
February 27, 2024 7:02 AM Subscribe
The new song I'm writing is about loss of innocence. What loss can you tell me about?
This is a refinement of my recent question on loss.
In discussion of this topic it would be difficult not to mention loss of childhood innocence by way of abuse (emotional/physical/sexual) and I don't want to discourage that if you want to share your story. I do, however, want to encourage stories of loss of innocence in other ways.
This is a refinement of my recent question on loss.
In discussion of this topic it would be difficult not to mention loss of childhood innocence by way of abuse (emotional/physical/sexual) and I don't want to discourage that if you want to share your story. I do, however, want to encourage stories of loss of innocence in other ways.
There's a pretty big loss of innocence that comes from having found out the hard way that just because things feel wholly, genuinely, manifestly, indisputably true, that doesn't mean they are.
Being shown beyond doubt that the feeling of having a good grip on the obvious can be completely unreliable, from which it follows that every potential belief must be reality-checked from multiple trustworthy perspectives before being taken seriously, is a heavy blow to self-confidence that takes a long time to come to terms with.
posted by flabdablet at 7:48 AM on February 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
Being shown beyond doubt that the feeling of having a good grip on the obvious can be completely unreliable, from which it follows that every potential belief must be reality-checked from multiple trustworthy perspectives before being taken seriously, is a heavy blow to self-confidence that takes a long time to come to terms with.
posted by flabdablet at 7:48 AM on February 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
Best answer: The first time I realised that there were plenty of people who would happily see me and my family die just because we were Jewish.
It had never occurred to me before then that people could hate so indiscriminately like that. I'd never done anything wrong and neither had my family but still, our deaths would be celebrated just because of our ethnicity.
Then I realised that people in other minority groups had had that same realisation and it triggered a life long determination to treat people decently and with compassion by default.
So I hope that while that hate destroyed my innocence, it also made me a better man.
posted by underclocked at 7:54 AM on February 27, 2024 [9 favorites]
It had never occurred to me before then that people could hate so indiscriminately like that. I'd never done anything wrong and neither had my family but still, our deaths would be celebrated just because of our ethnicity.
Then I realised that people in other minority groups had had that same realisation and it triggered a life long determination to treat people decently and with compassion by default.
So I hope that while that hate destroyed my innocence, it also made me a better man.
posted by underclocked at 7:54 AM on February 27, 2024 [9 favorites]
first experience of death
around the time I was 4 or 5 years old, the family dog was stuck by a car and killed, down on the highway. over 40 years later and I can still remember standing on the tailgate of the little Datsun pick-up with the dog's body in the box, sobbing, just consumed by grief
the second loss of innocence was when the adult male from up the hill came by, he was heading into our house, and it was just the two of us and he made a comment that I forget the words, but it was like he thought it was kind of funny and stupid to be crying about a dead dog. That's when I learned people can be callous.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:07 AM on February 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
around the time I was 4 or 5 years old, the family dog was stuck by a car and killed, down on the highway. over 40 years later and I can still remember standing on the tailgate of the little Datsun pick-up with the dog's body in the box, sobbing, just consumed by grief
the second loss of innocence was when the adult male from up the hill came by, he was heading into our house, and it was just the two of us and he made a comment that I forget the words, but it was like he thought it was kind of funny and stupid to be crying about a dead dog. That's when I learned people can be callous.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:07 AM on February 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
When I was about 10, a kid/friend and I had this marvelously stupid idea to drop rocks from a train overpass onto cars below. We targeted the roofs of the vehicles and took turns shouting, "Bombs away!" as we made our bombing run on the unsuspecting traffic. Eventually, a rock hit a windshield and starred it. We ran and escaped. We were both aghast. The kid was overcome with guilt and told his mother that it was all my idea and it was I who dropped the rocks, and he didn't want to do it, and he tried to talk me out of it.
His mother came to our little cottage and, in a huff, informed my mother that her son was no longer allowed to play with me. There's more: the boy's family owned the cottages we rented, and my mother had to find us another place to live. I transitioned from blissful ignorance to viewing my friends provisionally, and I learned that unforeseen consequences flowed from what I did. In short: Things are not always what they seem to be.
posted by mule98J at 8:13 AM on February 27, 2024 [3 favorites]
His mother came to our little cottage and, in a huff, informed my mother that her son was no longer allowed to play with me. There's more: the boy's family owned the cottages we rented, and my mother had to find us another place to live. I transitioned from blissful ignorance to viewing my friends provisionally, and I learned that unforeseen consequences flowed from what I did. In short: Things are not always what they seem to be.
posted by mule98J at 8:13 AM on February 27, 2024 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I think a lot about the innocence to believing our government and the cops are the forces of good and learning about how far from the truth that often is.
posted by advicepig at 9:04 AM on February 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by advicepig at 9:04 AM on February 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
The first time you need to take care of your parents, rather than them taking care of you. If you're lucky this might be them getting surgery and you helping with their at home recovery. For folks with dysfunctional parents it can come much earlier and hit much harder.
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 10:18 AM on February 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by mrgoldenbrown at 10:18 AM on February 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
pet death
when you are an adult, and the only one responsible for their care
when you realize that your spackling the walls last year was a major risk factor for the cancer that killed them
when you see your partner being impatient with an animal
when you realize that your neighbor won't let her roommate use paper towels, but herself keeps two cars and replaces her rugs at least twice a year
posted by amtho at 10:57 AM on February 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
when you are an adult, and the only one responsible for their care
when you realize that your spackling the walls last year was a major risk factor for the cancer that killed them
when you see your partner being impatient with an animal
when you realize that your neighbor won't let her roommate use paper towels, but herself keeps two cars and replaces her rugs at least twice a year
posted by amtho at 10:57 AM on February 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I was very close to my father who presented as very liberal and I had thought because he had always encouraged me to anything I wanted that he was pro female. One day when a news article reported a particularly heinous instance of domestic abuse, my father said to his friend some version of 'can't you just imagine a woman who would just not stop bugging a man'. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say my whole vision of the world pivoted at that point.
posted by InkaLomax at 11:34 AM on February 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by InkaLomax at 11:34 AM on February 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
Imagine starting writing for fun in a diary-type journal you were gifted but it being a story about another kid who is struggling (sort of loosely based on a classmate, other books, tv show chars etc) and your parents finding it and assuming it's you and talking to your teachers, other parents etc before even asking you if anything was wrong. You stop writing, you stop trusting adults.
posted by meepmeow at 10:17 PM on February 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by meepmeow at 10:17 PM on February 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
When I was ~9-12 I had the gradual realization that magic isn't real; there aren't unicorns, fairies, ghosts, or secret portals to magical lands where animals talk and children can learn to cast spells. There is no Santa Claus—or, rather, there was a real guy who apocryphally got into a fistfight at the First Council of Nicaea, but not a jolly old man in a red suit and team of flying reindeer—and it's just your parents drinking the wine set out for Elijah at Passover.
(As a 30-something, I can confirm that the real world is a perfectly magical place on its own, no unicorns needed, but that realization took many more years of personal development.)
When I was in my early 20s a friend died in a car accident. She was one of the warmest, kindest people I've ever met; someone who set others at ease with her presence and brought people together. She was just about to graduate from college with a math degree and had a girlfriend she was very serious about. She was also the only child of her parents, who as I understand it had previously tried for many years to have a child and saw her birth as such a special and precious thing. And then she was gone. The accident happened at a badly designed intersection that has taken other lives before and since, and so it wasn't even necessarily a case of someone being grossly negligent or reckless. Just random fucking chance ending the life of one of the best people this world had on offer. That one ended my belief in a higher power.
posted by capricorn at 6:50 AM on February 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
(As a 30-something, I can confirm that the real world is a perfectly magical place on its own, no unicorns needed, but that realization took many more years of personal development.)
When I was in my early 20s a friend died in a car accident. She was one of the warmest, kindest people I've ever met; someone who set others at ease with her presence and brought people together. She was just about to graduate from college with a math degree and had a girlfriend she was very serious about. She was also the only child of her parents, who as I understand it had previously tried for many years to have a child and saw her birth as such a special and precious thing. And then she was gone. The accident happened at a badly designed intersection that has taken other lives before and since, and so it wasn't even necessarily a case of someone being grossly negligent or reckless. Just random fucking chance ending the life of one of the best people this world had on offer. That one ended my belief in a higher power.
posted by capricorn at 6:50 AM on February 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Reminds me of the quote from John Barth: “Innocence is like youth, which is given to us only to expend and takes its very meaning from its loss.”
posted by homesickness at 8:25 AM on March 7, 2024
posted by homesickness at 8:25 AM on March 7, 2024
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posted by Kutsuwamushi at 7:20 AM on February 27, 2024 [5 favorites]