We were discussing wishes today, realizing that kids these days (yeah, I am old) don`t know what to wish for. Not all of them I guess, but the majority (yeah, I am using a percentage) have no idea what to wish for when the “Make a wish!” presents itself. Why is that?
First off, let`s analyse the wishing part. Wish is something philosophical. It`s something that exist only in the mind of the wisher. True, some wishes are common as people wish for a similar/same thing. But wish surpases reality and is not based on it in terms of wishing for something that only exists in the real world.
But people do exactly that and keep forgetting that wishing is something that transcends reality and does not necessarily apply to the real world. Kids in particular.
The reason in my opinion is in the narrowing of the field of choices. Today, everything is preordained. Everything is pre-made, pre-packed and pre-cooked. The perfect example are the lego blocks which for no apparent reason are getting more and more simplified every year. You get a thematised box of blocks (hehe), which you can only assemble at the one and only way. In my days, you got a bucket of blocks (hehe) and you put them together the way you wanted it. I even remember adjusting the blocks itself, sawing off a piece or gluing them together so that the whole construction would fit my imagination and wish. But now, toys resemble fast food. No creativity, only one way to do it.
What do you wish for?
Lego blocks 🙂
couldn’t dis-agree w/ u more.
it’s not called “fast food” but marketing. since 5-10 y. ago, Lego was for the first time in its history in “red figures”. so the company changed the strategy, starting to sell so-called merchandise (to survive). so you have harry potter lego, barbie lego, guns ‘n’ roses lego, make-up lego etc. which doesn’t diminish the wishlist. on contrary….it expandes it or make it more individual.
in past, everybody had the same set of lego-blocks, nowadays there is more variety of everything.
I ask myself, how usefull are these toys nowadays?
Kids just wish, coz they have seen in on TV, they want harry potter lego-blocks, bedsheets with harry-logo, t-shirts, etc…. huh…
That`s exactly my point. Kids lack imagination. You could build a lord of the rings castle, a harry potter school, a barbie house…anything you wanted in “the old days”. Why? Because things were not predefined. You got blocks. Now build.
Now, everything is preplaned. Wishes come prepacked. Why? Because people do not have the imagination to wish beyond what is here and now. People lack the ability to make wishes like “I wish I could fly” or “I wish I could move the car with my bare hands”. Instead they wish for an ipod, a new laptop, a new britney spears CD and such.
You talk about variety, I talk about options. About the field of choices that is closing in on us. Soon, the whole world will be summed up into two options. Live or die. And nothing else.
domen:
integrate time variable in your way of thinking and you will get better results.
Kot je že pred leti Madonna pela “You know that we are living in a material world” je tako tudi danes. Živimo v materialnem svetu in “materialne” želje so uresničljive za razliko od “želim si, da bi lahko letel” in podobnih nerealnih želja. Oklepati se želja, ki so daleč od realnosti pomeni živeti v iluzijah. Poleg tega želje same itak niso dovolj.
Ko ravno omenjaš Lego kocke. Že ko sva bila midva osnovnošolčka so prodajali “predefined” Lego kocke. Sošolcu so jih prinesli starši iz Avstrije. Imel si srednjeveški grad, “vitezke” itd. Ne glede na to sva jih midva še vedno sestavljala po svoje in si izmišljala zgodbice okrog teh njegovih “stričkov”. Mar ni to tudi en kreativen način igranja?
Peace on earth.
(redefine predefined… mojemu LEGO tovornjaku z dvigalom iz avstrije je manjkala ena vrecka sestavnih delov… pa je bilo vse ok.)