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Fantasy For Adults: Opening Up To What It Could Be
Time to take what it is for what it is
Conformity
‘It is what it is’. There’s an expression we don’t like to hear. I think there is good reason for this aversion: you can hardly appear more acquiescent than you can by uttering those five words. The expression is brimming with acceptance and conformity. ‘It’s not that I like it, but it is what it is, and what it is, is that we’re stuck with it.’ How can such a vacuous expression simultaneously convey so much and so little meaning? It feels as though, by being vague, we show our true, bland colours. No wonder some people hate the phrase.
Children Have No Time For It
We learn ’it is what it is’ as adults. Children have little time for it and will dismiss it as adult talk if you ever feel the urge to speak it in their presence. I believe this is because children don’t know what it is, so it is irrelevant. They still need to find out for themselves. If you ever want a child to read more, you should probably tell them not to bother with literature. ‘I’ll be the judge of that!’, instinctively rebellious kids will tell themselves. Imagine the freedom of not knowing what it is: the open world of possibility brought to us by having to explore rather than taking anyone else’s word for it.