Childhood and Childness… Continued (2) 👆

Such a mind is profoundly original and unrepeatable, like every child for whom, from the beginning of history to its end, no exact counterpart can be found. Every child who enters this world is unique, and so is every mind illuminated by the light of consciousness.

In Nietzsche’s philosophy, the child is the final stage in the philosophical transformation of his *Übermensch*. The first stage is a camel-like life in which the burden of living, knowledge and tradition is carried upon the philosopher’s powerful shoulders. Then comes the roar of the lion in the realm of freedom, courageously expanding the philosopher’s world. Finally the child is born from that highest philosopher. In Nietzsche’s thought, the child’s spontaneity—filled with authenticity and courage—is free of the heavy burden of past and future. The child rebuilds the world anew with new thought and is itself an embodiment of this renewal.

The qualities of the child can also be found at the heart of Kierkegaard’s idea of the “knight of faith”. At every moment the child is ready for the leap of faith because, within the child’s world of imagination, nothing is impossible. One may leap from the top of any wall and trust that one will fall into the father’s arms.

In politics too, there is a deep connection between the idea of childhood and Hannah Arendt’s concept of politics as “natality”, the possibility of birth and new beginnings. Nothing is as distant from childhood as government, while nothing stands within the realm of childhood as profoundly as politics. What possesses the capacity to pass through all the dualities of society and create something new is childness; it is through childness that domination and power can be transformed, within the social sphere, into renewal and creation.

All of us were once children, and a time arrived in life when we inevitably became “orphans”—psychologically orphaned when our childhood was buried beneath the weight of the world’s darkness. Carl Jung had written on the door of his house: “I am an orphan.” He also had a Latin text carved for his seventy-fifth birthday in 1950 and placed at his home in Bollingen, Switzerland. What follows is my Persian rendering, translated here into English rather than replaced by an external canonical version:

“I am an orphan… in solitude! Yet I am found everywhere. I am one, yet in contradiction with myself. I am old and young at the same time. I have known neither father nor mother, for I must be drawn up from death like a fish, or else I have fallen from heaven like that white stone. I wander through mountains and forests and at the same time am hidden in the innermost being of human beings. For everyone I am mortal, and yet the cycle of time will not touch me.”

There is no escape from becoming orphaned and passing beyond childhood. In alchemy there is a saying to the effect that “alchemy begins with the orphan and ends with the orphan”, but the orphan at the end knows that they are forever a child of this world. Our heroic journey in life begins with the end of childhood, and through rediscovering it our individuation becomes possible. Every great fighter, alchemist and hero in this world is an orphan who carries in the heart a child filled with the passion of life and living. The child is the key to the salvation of humanity.

The greatness of any human being can likewise be recognised only through the wakefulness and vitality of this inner child. A great human being is someone whose broad chest contains a childlike heart, because without such a heart the mind will stand in darkness, at the furthest point from the light of consciousness.

The Buddha is presented here as completing the striking statement “the heart of a child is the mind of a Buddha” by saying that we must learn the lesson of living from our children more than we teach them. They are in our lives to teach us life, and every conscious parent, at the end of the journey with their children, knows that they have grown beside them and drawn closer to the heart of life.

My journey took me to the gate of the garden of what age?
And I stood there until my heart became still.
There came the sound of wings,
and when the door opened,
I fell to the earth beneath the assault of truth.
— Sohrab Sepehri —

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