I think we all sometimes wish we could be
babies again.
Being a baby seems so peaceful and carefree.
You have no responsibilities.
You can spend all day sleeping and crying,
my two favorite hobbies.
I sometimes imagine life as a linear graph
from a completely unstressed baby
to an incredibly anxious adult,
with just one spike at age 6 when I first
watched Teletubbies.
But really, being a baby must be extremely
stressful.
Like being born must be extremely stressful.
Like you know the feeling when it’s dark
and then the lights are turned on and your
eyes struggle to adjust to the light?
Being born is like that except you never even
knew that light existed.
Because babies don’t know anything.
Because they are very stupid.
And then, babies are rapidly exposed to the
terrifying realities of our universe.
Just think of some of the horrifying things
that babies have to deal with.
I’ll rattle some off quickly.
Number One: Rattles.
This object is just so immensely powerful.
Babies no longer have the comfort of being
mere passengers in their sensory experience
of the world.
Now they control that sensory experience.
They control sound.
They control touch.
The rattle gives them this incredible control
over their own senses,
over their own reality,
over the shape of the world itself.
And that power is exhilarating…
but sometimes the rattle just feels like too
much responsibility.
Number Two: Baby talk.
Do you want your rattle?
Do you want your itty-bitty waddle?
Yes, you do.
Gootchy gootchy goo.
A wiggy wiggy woo.
[monster noises]
Are the demons trying to communicate with
you?
Oh yes they are.
I am their vessel.
Number Three: Sleeping.
Babies have just started existing.
And then they get sleepy and discover that
the only way to continue existing
is to stop existing for extended periods of
time on a daily basis.
Number Four: The cosmic insignificance of
their entire reality.
And number Five: Teletubbies.
But I think the most terrifying thing about
being a baby is that there is no escape.
When we,
smart, wise, big humans,
are overwhelmed with the beauty of the universe,
we back away.
Sometimes, we get right against that powerful
energy.
We dance and we dance and we dance, but before
we lose ourselves in the beauty, we say:
Oh, my feet are tired from dancing.
I am going to sit down now and drink some
apple juice.
But babies are pushed into that powerful energy,
and they have no other place to go.
They have no choice but to dance and to dance
and to keep on dancing,
and to dance until their legs go numb,
and to dance until the music is absorbed into
their blood,
and to dance until they forget that they’re
dancing,
and that powerful energy, that overwhelming
beauty becomes their daily monotony.
And then they dance some more.
[baby crying]
["Too Much" by Sufjan Stevens]
