Early Futures

Philosophies of Children

In the past few weeks I’ve been focusing on obtaining orally told stories/philosophies from the children on their ideas of the world, not just specifically on “futures”, but on everything. Their voices are quite profound, as are their drawings from their ideas. Since there are more then one this time, they are being posted all together.

For those of you who are curious, the methodology for obtaining their ideas is quite simple. I sit down with a child one on one. I present them with some topics that I find interesting and have not heard a child discuss at length in the past few stories. I will ask, “Do you want to tell a story about some things I am confused about, maybe to help me? Do you want to talk about… the universe? (No..) or why humans are alive (No…), okay what about broken hearts (Yes!).” Once they decide on a topic, I will just ask what they know about it, or say “How do you want to start your story on XXX?” As they continue to talk, I will ask follow up questions or clarifying questions, like “Uh, did you just say, TRA-GE-DY? or did you say TRAMP-O-LINE?” I may ask leading questions like, “Well, what about the end?” or “What do you think happens after that?” or “Ok, but what’s beyond (inside, outside, past, before, alongside..etc) such and such a thing?”

Other then that, it is straight out of their mouths onto the paper.

“I Guess We’re Alive”

You Won’t Be Able To Die

By Lilah, age 4

The Earth won’t die because it’s a planet.
But everything does though.
Except spirits who die from people.
Except drawings who are never alive.
And houses who were never alive.

So what do you do if they aren’t alive?
Find a village that is alive?
Where even when they’re very weak and old
they never die.

Objects live forever.

People live for a long time
when its longer then when they were born,
they die.

They stop talking.
That’s all I am going to say,
I’m never going to talk again.

Language’s problem is
because everyone in a day has to talk so much.
We all speak in different languages.
There are 100, 1000, 1 million, 1 killion, infinity languages.
We never know what they say or think.

We’ll only know when we die.
When we’re all on Earth.
We know when you’ll die.

If one of us dies at the same time we’ll see each other.
We could put our hands right through each other.
We would still love, but not our human body.
We would love the people that died in our family.
So I guess we’re alive.

-

“We Cry In Pain”

Little Rainbow Pain

By Lucia, age 5

Pain was born in the stomach.
Not everyone has pain all the time.
Sometimes people get injured,
and sometimes they do better,
and sometimes they eat their blood.
Sometimes they eat blocks
so they can have sparkly mouths.

Pain comes from people and the universe.
It feels like people don’t feel good.
They have pain in their bodies,
just like me,
I have pain in my body.

You can get pain in your mind.
Like when someone or you dies.
Like when you are sad.
Me and my sister cry.

We cry in pain.

When you don’t feel pain it goes to your mom.
Your mom feels pain.
When mom’s pain leaves she doesn’t feel well.
Pain’s home is in mom’s stomach.

You have the most pain though when you’re dead.

That’s all I know about pain.

-

“I Don’t Know How To Talk”

I Do Not Want God To Die

By Denmark, age 4

I don’t know how to talk about the universe.
It’s too hard.
I don’t know a universe.
I only know about magicians.
They make magic.
It looks purple, white, blue, black, all the colors.

You just learn magic by growing older.
When you are 7.
Then you are 8.
Then you die.

When you die you just be died.
Then God makes you be alive
and real again
because he has magic.

You are nothing and the same.

God came from outerspace when he was a baby.
God-God gave birth to him.
The magician gave birth to God-God.
God got magic from the magician.

God manages the Earth.
He shot an arrow up and down at the magician (right now on my paper).

God has a heart
and that’s what he shot at the magician
because the magician wanted to fight,
so he shot the heart.

They both died.
The Earth died.
The people died.
Everything dies in the whole world.

It takes time to know how you feel.

-

“Eat Your Own Heart”

Big Heart
By Lia, age 4

The broken heart is broken.
Only the broken, is the heart.
The heart was broken because no one was nothing or alive.
The heart felt S-A-D.
Its sadness lives in the North Pole, in the ocean.

The ocean is a broken heart.
The waves hurt the ocean’s tummy.
You turn into an ocean when you have a broken heart.
Its like a knife cut that bleeds,
but you’ll be ok,
but the broken heart won’t get better.

You can still walk though.
Some people can’t walk anymore
if they are sad.

The ocean is humongous.
The ocean eats the treasure of boats.
The pirates are in the broken heart,
but they can’t swim because they weren’t real anymore.
They used to be.
You are left with nothing.
Only what comes out of you, like poop and pee.

People’s hearts say goodbye when they are still dead.

This is a tragedy.

In the end, you eat your own heart.

Read more:

1. More Philosophies from Children The Earth Needs People By Riva, age 5 I...
2. Universe, Birth, Hate, Death: Interview Samples Here are some samples of some of my recorded interviews...
3. Children Tell The Future Futures 2010 (brought to you by the 4-and 5-year-old’s at...
4. You Can Talk in the Universe / By Allie You Can Talk in the Universe / By Allie,...
5. The World’s Story / By Alexandra The World’s Story / By Alexandra, age 4 “The universe...
6. The Real Future / By Abigail The Real Future / By Abigail, age 4 “I...
7. I. The Earth is Bright II.Then the Earth Died / By Edward I. The Earth is Bright / By Edward, age 5...
8. What We Know About Being Here We’ve finally put together a full version of the stories...