Were we really 'wilder' when we were kids?

Or were we just less collapsed? And therefore we can become wild again!

I remember a couple years back I was at a birthday for my son and we were holding it at the pool at our apartment building.

We’d hired this pool party organizer to set everything up and it was sort of an obstacle course of floats that they set up on the water.

And their staff members would also be moving the floats as the kids were standing on them to make it more challenging.

There was one of my son’s friends that was far more collapsed than the others. And he was very cautious about everything he did.

Certain challenges he refused to participate in at all while other ones that were less ‘risky’ he did very cautiously.

Later when his mother picked him up she wasn’t surprised at all to hear this as he was always like this with almost all sports. And it was in part because he got injured relatively easily.

Meanwhile there was this other kid who had great biomechanics who’d been jumping around the whole time like a mad man. And I half thought he’d break his neck on the side of the pool a couple times… but he never did.

It made me think that it is not that kids are ‘crazier’, rather it is simply that we were less collapsed as kids, and thus bolder.

And I want to shed some more light on this today as i find it interesting.

We often like to remember back to our ‘wild’ days when we were young

When most older adults that are say in their 40’s and up reminisce about their younger days they usually remember themselves as much wilder and carefree.

We remember ourselves taking far more risk and living much more carefree.

We assume that ‘growing up’ and adulthood stifled this wild spirit in ourselves as we needed to adapt to working in offices and acting ‘professionally’.

It seemed to just be “how life worked”.

And so we reminisce for the rest of our lives about our ‘wild’ young days and the crazy things we did. Never to return to that state.

Except that there is this small minority of people that continued being ‘wild’ even as adults.

Johnny Knoxville and his gang like Steve-O from the MTV show “Jackass” were classic examples of this in the early 2000’s.

They were the kids that never grew up.

But we all kind of knew someone a bit like them from high school or something. They just grew up a bit slower than everyone else.

And the thing that pretty much all these folks shared was that they all had good biomechanics.

I think we were ‘wilder’ because we were less collapsed

When I reflect on things now I view that it wasn’t just ‘adulthood’ that changed us. \

Sure getting a job and working in an office is gonna force us to get more mature… but if you had good biomechanics I think you’d remain wild at heart.

For example.. I remember I had friends in my old consulting days when I was in my early 20’s that had the mindset of “work hard, play hard” and they’d party till the wee hours of the morning, but then be back in the office bright and early to still put in a full work day.

Then a decade or two later these same friends were sitting at home on their couch watching Netflix on Friday night feeling like they could no longer do what they used to be able to do.

You see… it wasn’t just maturity that made us act and feel older (and more boring).

It was declining biomechanics.

And so we get ‘wilder’ as we resurrect ourselves from collapse

As people start to evolve with these biomechanics I think they are going to see and feel that their body can do more. It can take more punishment.

They want to have more fun.

Not take life as seriously.

That is how I feel. If you were to see me at home I am almost never serious. You’d literally think i was an immature teenager.

I play fight with my kid, crack stupid jokes and wrestle my wife occasionally, etc.

This is not how I behaved when I was collapsing. I was just this serious dude who came home and talked about ‘grown up’ stuff.

Which often consisted of things to worry about.

Now I rarely ever want to do that.

Something has changed inside me in a major way.

scene from “Jackass Forever” movie in 2022

Why is this important?

I think this is an important psychological thing to look forward to with this process.

If your experience is anything like mine then as you progress, you will get less mature.

This doesn’t mean you’re not going to take care of your responsibilities as an adult.. you will.

In fact you will probably perform better in your job, your business, etc.

But at the same time…. when you are relaxing, you will feel more like a kid again.

Not afraid to yell out when wrestling with your children at home so that your neighbors can hear.

Not worrying if they look at you strange the next time you see them.. because honestly who gives a f*ck! haha

This weekend my kid and I got into a play kickboxing battle while at this nightlife area called Asiatique here in Bangkok.

It completely didn’t dawn on me till after we were done with our ‘battle’ that we were not in our living room… and there were a whole bunch of people looking at me wondering why this middle age guy (I’m 48) was acting like a teenager.

That concern flashed across my mind for literally about one second and then I just didn’t care.

It was time for another battle! Hahaha

Closing thoughts

As I get healthier I realize more and more that life is not meant to be taken too seriously.

You can still have ambitious goals and work extremely hard without acting like a boring fart.

In fact a lot of the most successful business people in the world reflect this ‘immaturity’.

The reason is not that they have some superior mindset that they’ve indoctrinated into themselves. Rather it is usually gonna be physical.

They had better biomechanics and soon you can have this too.

So savor it.

It’s a much better way of living life in my view.