April 30, 2025
The other day, I went back to my old elementary school. Just walked the halls for a while. The first thing that hit me was the smell—chalk dust, old books, those thick magic markers teachers used on poster board. It was like opening a drawer I forgot existed in my own mind. A flood of memories came rushing in: lunchbox stickers, recess races, the thrill of a gold star. All still there, waiting in the air.
But then there was the size of everything. The desks were tiny. The hallways narrow. Even the playground felt shrunken, like a stage set built to trick a child into thinking the world was huge. I laughed at first. But the longer I walked around, the more it settled into something deeper.
This is what *Currents of Tomorrow* has helped me notice: the shift in perception over time isn’t just about growing taller or older—it’s about how we come to see. The shape of a moment, a place, even a memory, bends around who we are when we return to it. The building didn’t change. I did. The world adjusts its dimensions not to reality, but to our position inside it.
It made me wonder what else in my life I’m still seeing with a child’s scale—what fears I’ve left oversized, what joys I’ve underestimated. The tenet of *order* reminds me: perspective gives structure to experience. It doesn’t just reflect the world; it helps shape what we take from it.
I left the school with a strange comfort. Things are smaller now, yes. But maybe that’s because I’ve grown into more space than I once imagined was mine to hold.
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