Grown-Ups, Tomatoes, and Magic Pocket Link
Essay by Eric Archer
Photos by Hannah M. Gore
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Obviously it’s a question you get asked less and less the older you get — “What is your dream?” Granted, the older we get, the less interesting the answers generally get. Maybe that’s why people stop asking. Usually when you ask a preschooler what they want to be when they grow up, they don’t respond “an actuary” or “a civil engineer.” It’s usually something more fun (barring it’s the world’s most practical four-year-old — you never know).
I always enjoy reading the answers kids give when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s the kind of fodder they throw on the walls of a daycare in an effort to meet state standards or snatch a smile out of parents after a long day of analyzing complex risks or redesigning city roadways.
Usually you can expect the answers to go something like this:
A few of them will want to be teachers. (They have not yet learned how poorly society pays those.)
You might get some civil servants in there (policeman, firefighter, Spider-Man, etc.).
You sometimes get the thrill seekers (monster truck driver, roller coaster rider).
There’s a good chance you get a president in there. (Frankly they might be qualified.)
The ones that always make me laugh are the big dreamers. The ones that hit you with something out of left field. Something like, “When I grow up, I want to be a tomato.” (You always have to be chasing something in life. Might as well dream big.)
There was a point in my life when I stopped dreaming — big, or even much at all. This was a sharp contrast to the ambition bordering on lunacy I embodied through middle and high school. Back then I wanted to be a Hollywood film director — the next Steven Spielberg. I call it a want, but as a teen reclining on the plastic elegance of a high school desk chair, I think I would have called it a know. I knew I would do it.
As I get older, I’ve learned never to demand a destiny out of life. No sooner does the demand leave your mouth than life hits you with a few quick jabs to the gut, and next we meet our protagonist who we find slouching on a couch watching college roll past them, wondering how Spielberg got so lucky anyways (so it goes).
You won't catch me claiming that Spielberg doesn't have luck flowing out of each and every pocket of his blue jeans (even the tiny one inside the front pocket that no one knows the use for). In turn though, I’m not sure you would have caught him lying on a couch wondering why he can't just close his eyes and wake up with a dream come true (touché).
That’s the thing we have yet to tell those preschoolers — how freaking hard is it to keep feeding a dream when you realize how hard manifesting a dream can be.
“I want to be the president,” they say.
“Let me know when you understand the basics of Keynesian economics,” Life responds.
“I want to test roller coasters,” they say.
“Let's make it past car sickness first,” Life responds.
“I want to be Spider-Man,” they say.
“Maybe at birthday parties,” Life responds, “Maybe at birthday parties.”
“What a meany Life is,” they cry and rush from the room.
Dreams are hard, man. At some point we start to figure that out.
As far as myself, somewhere between lying on the sofa wishing for some of Steven Spielberg’s lucky pocket lint and starting my first big boy job, I’ve begun to realize it’s not quite as simple as I am or am not Spider-Man (I’m not). I’m no Hollywood director (probably never will be), but I do get paid to make videos for a living. It only happened when I finally got off the couch and started the legwork — and the truth is, I’m living a pretty solid dream as we speak.
You may never hustle hard enough to have the mansion of your dreams overlooking your own personal vineyard, life will do its damndest to make sure of that. But, if you give up now, you’ll never find the little house overlooking a vegetable garden on the way — and that’s a pretty good dream too.
Tell this to the preschooler — you may never be the big dreamer that grows up to be a tomato. But you could grow one in your garden — and that's a pretty good dream too.
(Don't really tell them that. Let ’em have it. They’ll figure it out on their own).