"He has about eight words in his vocabulary that he uses to describe everything"
-Woman I overhead, in reference to her son
Childhood is odd. I don't really remember mine; even my elementary school years are a blur-with-occasional-flashes-of-remembrance. But I'm particularly enamoured, currently, with the mind before Language is learned. What, I wonder, must it be like to see dozens of things and refer to them with the same word? Surely the mind, underdeveloped as it is at that time, must distinguish between one thing and another. But if so, why then use a single word to collectively Name them? Does the child's mind simply perceive things in a radically different manner, making connections and therefore grouping objects in ways that more mature minds are unable to? And what about before any recognizable verbal Language is used at all? Can there be any recognition, any thought? As I write this, I conceive it was words, and therefore as ideas. Before I had words to describe ideas, could I have had the ideas, or would it have been impossible to conceive of even the most basic concepts, much less abstract thought?
If I didn't find interacting with kids so repulsive, I'd breed them for the purpose of research.
*****
In other news, there are certain things that can best be settled over a relaxing shisha.