As these children reach adulthood, they approach a point where they must come to terms with their new status in life, free from parental restraint and schooling but caught by the newfound responsibility of work and family. Contemporary writer Douglas Coupland, in a novel about modern youth and the Generation X sub-culture, calls this the "Mid-Twenties Breakdown: A period of mental collapse occurring in one's twenties, often caused by an inability to function outside of school or structured environments coupled with a realization of one's essential aloneness in the world."1
As the person comes to terms with their new direction in life, they must also take stock of their own beliefs, including dreams and wishes. The song "My Secret Origin" by Ookla the Mok represents an example of this train of thought; it is a lament on the subject of unfulfilled dreams, dreams that are both improbable and far-fetched. The singer tells us a story, of sorts: "There was a boy who knew he could be anything that he wanted to. Everybody told him he had a singular special destiny. Everybody said he'd go far--everybody said he'd be a star. They said he could be anything he wanted to be--then he turned into me."2 He acknowledges the fact that though something is possible, it is not a certainty. Telling a child they could be president is not the same as telling them they will be president. And then there are the individuals who take their dreams one step further, as the singer does: "Now it seems increasingly unlikely that I'm gonna grow up to be Luke Skywalker--not gonna be Indiana Jones. And after all this time it's probably not gonna turn out that I'm the super-powered heir to a world that isn't there anymore." Rationally, everyone knows the impossibility of such destinies. The Force is not real, Krypton does not exist, and archeologists do not fight Nazis and drink from the cup of Christ. Adults know better, but try telling a child the truth. It is not something a parent wants to do, any more than they would like to admit Santa Claus is a fictional entity. Admission of a lie changes the way parents look in the eyes of children. Adults lose the respect and are labeled as liars. So society keeps its collective mouth shut, and youth remains ignorant.
Tales of the fantastic are prominent in the fabric of our culture. We read the stories of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and "Cinderella" to kindergartners, little boys look at Superman and Spiderman comics in their backyards, Star Wars is one of the most popular movies of all time. These tales appeal to youth most of all. They appeal to youth because children and adolescents can relate to the stories, where the hero is young and inexperienced, the story represents their coming-of-age. Joseph Campbell, a prominent sociologist and scholar, calls it the "hero's journey," citing Star Wars as an example. Luke Skywalker is 18 years old, and living an uneventful life on an isolated farm world. Two droids show up with secret plans, he meets a legendary Jedi master; Luke discovers he has power over a mystical Force that binds together all life in the universe. Luke then goes to rescue the princess, finds out who his father is, saves his friends from an evil crime lord, confronts his father, and in the end the rebellion wins, and Luke realizes what an immense responsibility being a Jedi is. The story is epic, with its highs and lows, and it shows us a single character maturing and becoming a responsible adult. Luke's existence on the farm world of Tatooine is representative of the living situations that many youth find themselves in. Trapped in dull and restrictive lives, adolescents use fantastic literature as escapism, and become Luke Skywalker in spirit. Society has already told them they could become anything they want to, so why not a Jedi Knight?
The setting of Star Wars is a far away place of long ago, distant as Ancient Egypt or the Roman Empire is to the average American. The stories are known, and the realities of the two are clear. Egyptians are real; Corellians and Wookies are not. To hope to be Luke Skywalker then appears to be a foolish dream, since the story is blatantly impossible. This dream serves as an example, an archetype of hope. A more plausible dream to the intelligent child is the superhero myth. Comic books present us with the ordinary transformed. An alien rocket ship crashes, and the pilot dies on impact. Before passing away, he sends his omnipotent green "power ring" forth to find a new owner. It selects Hal Jordan, former test pilot, who with power ring in hand, becomes the new Green Lantern of Earth. He can create any object imaginable using the ring, described by many as "the most powerful weapon in the universe." Of course, he chooses to fight evil and protect the innocent. This "secret origin" is something to identify with: an ordinary man, courageous at heart, chosen to be something special. An extra-terrestrial ship, not implausible in a world where over half the American population believes an alien spacecraft crashed in Roswell, New Mexico one fateful day in 1947. And throughout the world, it is hard to find a true atheist, almost everyone believes in some higher power, their faith holding them to that belief despite lack of tangible proof. From birth, adults tell their children to believe in God despite an obtrusive lack of evidence. They train their children to believe in the impossible.
As young children grow into teenagers, their intelligence and understanding of the world increases, as does the inclination to ask questions of what their base of knowledge cannot explain, and later reject it. An outlook of wonder is replaced with cold hard reality; their interest expands to more tangible things, such as the opposite sex. Some ideas remain however, especially hope for the future, a variable that still possesses a grain of reality. The future cannot be discounted since it has not happened yet, and adults and their children still acknowledge that future success is only a possibility. A child could be president, not that they will be. The song acknowledges the existence of the former, and the disappointment a person feels as it takes hold and becomes the reality. This emotional crash can be the mid-twenties breakdown, not dissimilar to the mid-life crisis that older men and women alike may undergo. These young adults question their own beliefs, all their dreams and ambitions. Their capricious expectations are revealed to be but an imaginary story, a fairy tale akin to "The Emperor's New Clothes." The emperor has no clothes, and their dreams have no basis in reality. As a result, their realistic goals may be lost and swept aside as the meaningless trappings of childhood, tossed away like "the baby with the bath water." While in the short term they may find it easier to simply forget the past and all they have worked for, doing so neglects their own natural talents and the years of preparation for a career they no longer want. They begin from scratch, and their disillusionment prevents them from truly rising to greatness.
If fiction is so detrimental, so harmful to an individual, then why are children raised on it? Children are voids, blank slates free of all disbelief, skepticism, and prejudice. Adults see their children as capable of achieving everything they failed at, learning everything they never cultivated. Children represent a new start. Parents like to see their offspring go on to achieve greatness, a form of immortality. The names that live on are the cognomens of writers, painters, and scientists. These professions require a modicum of creativity, imagination. What better to stimulate the fancy of a child than stories of the fantastic, the impossible? The child's only recourse at this point is to recreate the ideas imparted to them, whether through story, art, or even the physical world by the path of science. These are the professions that advance the world technologically and culturally.
A society needs dreamers to better it, to create progress. Yet not everyone can be a scientist or a great writer. These are the children who wish for the impossible, to be the last son of Krypton or a princess in disguise. They are the disappointed adults who toil away in dreary jobs, having misplaced their ambition long ago. In Douglas Coupland's novel Shampoo Planet, a French girl scorns aspiration and desire, asking her optimistic American companion, "which is more fair: to promise your children the moon and then give your children nothing-or promise only a little-be realistic- so when your children become civil servants they are not unhappy? I think your ambition is crooo-el."3 Whatever the situation in France, across the ocean in the "land of the free and home of the brave," children are taught to reach for the unattainable. Some children fly, forging themselves a remarkable destiny. The others fall. They were never prepared for the reality, and are left with no sense of direction. These individuals are not fated to live uneventful lives; more so they make bad decisions. The singer talks about not spending "another wasted year, cause at the end I bet I'd still be sitting here wasting time and waiting." In waiting for an impossible dream, he accomplished nothing with his life. He accepts the implausibility of those dreams and tells us "Don't count me out of it--my story isn't over yet." He has decided to move on, because "looking back I find it seems I've always had unlikely dreams but I can't let that stop me now, it's time to grow up anyhow." Most individuals reach this point at some time in their lives, where they must cast off the wreckage of dreams and create a reality for themselves. Before then, time is wasted; people live with false hopes that linger their entire life.
In the end, children need to have reality made clear. The difference between could and will, possibility and certainty, they must be made clear to children if they are to be productive individuals. Whether they become scientists or bankers, all children need a good grasp of reality to outline goals for themselves. Myth is not a bad thing, but when the line between fiction and reality is blurred, the fantasy becomes meaningless.
2Rand Bellavia and Adam L. English, "My Secret Origin," from Super Secret, (Randam Music: 1998). Performed by Ookla the Mok.
3Douglas Coupland, Shampoo Planet, (Pocket Books, New York: 1992), 243