Some people dislike children. Others viscerally love them. I don't have strong feelings. I am perhaps not exposed to them enough to be cornered into either camp.When I see children show up in any social setting, it's often one surrounded by many other adults. The child becomes the center of attention with all the peekiweekies, whistles, claps and the like, and I thus keep to myself. There's plenty enough stimulation for the child to deal with.For now, I remain deep in the throes of the grown-up world, formed of quarter- and mid-life crises, corporate intrigue, large legible ambitions, self help thinking, and copious amounts of hyper-self-awareness.That said, I suspect that I'd love children.I still have memories of what it was like to be of the ungrown class. There were downsides of course. For one, I remember being quite a bit stupider than I am now. As a child, whenever my family tried to pass a level-crossing, I used to quite sincerely get concerned about a train hitting our car, and I used to admonish my parents for trying to attempt such an endangering manoeuver. Turn around, I'd say. Find a way to go around the railway track. This stupidity is why I never yearn to become a child again. Because children are so mentally undercooked, adults feel entitled to go all authoritarian on them, and with the wrong adults (as has been the case in a lot of my childhood encounters with grown-ups), it can be a world of wretchedness.However there were many upsides. There's a clean simplicity to a child's mind and emotions. Children are dreamy, frenetic, and hooked deeply into the present moment. They do not think about thoughts about their thoughts regarding an imagined hypothetical and then drown themselves in a prolonged ennui. The world is new to them, low on preconceptions, and free of complex desires. There's no gunk or deep-seated beliefs to fight when they have to update their representation and understanding of the world.Helen Levitt, New York, 1938Their emotions are naturally swift, strong, and yet fleeting, like bright flashes of primary colour, quite unlike the wistfully dull and complex textures of grey, olive, and sepia-tone world of grown-up emotions.There's also no two ways about it—children are cute—and also comically tiny and ill-proportioned. They are socially accepted, or rather, socially welcomed idiots (if you are a child reading this, I'm sorry. But this is objectively true). Their very existence is a form of visual comedy, and their motions evoke slapstick. We cut them slack because they just got here.Watching a thing grow and unfold into something can be insightful. Their learning rate is fantastically high due to them not having experienced the most basic things, and it can be quite satisfying seeing them strain their faces with confusion and then suddenly get something, all in real time.T. S. Satyan, Homework after bath, 1978Despite being little blockheads, they are far more radiant than most adults and full of aura. There's a certain balance and correctness to the simple thinking that's prior to the formation of concepts that obscure the clarity of experience, and grown-ups should take more notes from them. As we grow older we learn to ignore the fantastic complexity of nature and the institutions that surround us, so that we can focus on our narrow grown-up matters. A child does not discern between what should be ignored and what should one make sense of.A conversation with a child often reveals how shallow our understanding of just about anything is. What is wall made of? Why should my socks match? Why is the moon following us? Why do I have to do [what I am being forced to do]? How did the first person get chicken-pox? How come I have two eyes, but just one picture? Can you tell me what things are? Why do ceiling fans have only three blades? Are you sure this is not a dream? Are dogs left-pawed or right-pawed?Most adults would bumble a rather imprecise answer to most of these questions.Meanwhile adults have the most inane, dull questions for children. What do you want to be when you grow up? Do you remember me? Have you been a good boy? Repeat that rhyme for me. Tell me what they taught you at school today?School. It is a pipeline where children are taught to obey, and answer questions rather than ask them, and then they become grown-ups who will ask these inane questions to the next generation of children again.Or you could not be a typical grown up. The loss of radiance is not inevitable. You could see the world anew, one prior to the concepts that were drilled in your head.