What A Young Child Believes Is One Thing
Of course a child is going to believe in Santa Claus.As the child sees the world around them carry out details related to Santa Claus, the child is even more convinced.
The child has used an elementary thought process to move from belief, by using a narrow range of experiences, to then reach confirmation of the belief. Santa Claus is the same concept as believing in anything else such as Easter Bunny, Great Pumpkin, Cupid, Tooth Fairy, Frog Prince, Magic Carpet...
These beliefs start out as someone telling us they exist and then is supported by a cast of cultural experiences to confirm the belief.
A Lot Of What A Growing Child Believes, Soon Changes
Sooner or later, without provocation from anyone, a growing child grows suspicious of Santa Claus until the child has tested the belief in Santa Claus and realizes it is appropriate for young children but not for children who are truly “growing up.” The child moves on beyond the pretensions associated with a belief in Santa Claus. However, this is not where the story ends for any of us.There are more Santa Claus'es waiting to be believed in.
A Santa Claus For Every Stocking Size Of Development
As we mature in understandings and begin to become aware of the world based on these new understandings, there is a Santa Claus waiting to fill the learning gap between what we don't understand and what we need to understand. As stated in the opening section above, there are many types of Santa Claus'es we believe in when we are children.Likewise, there are many types of Santa Claus'es for teenagers, young adults, adults, and the elderly and for female and males and for every time of designation, demographic and identifier you can think of. All of these Santa Claus'es are not always believed in by everyone but they are usually believed in by those who have not yet matured enough in understandings to see each Santa for who he really is - a teaching tool to learn about self and the rest of the world. Once we come to this understanding about each Santa Claus, we can apply the lessons without getting all caught up in the practices that are used to teach those lessons to children who perhaps need to be taught that way. Santa Claus is a good thing if we learn and apply the essence of the lesson to ourselves and to others.
The first Santa Claus'es we believed in as children, were indeed made for children's minds. We know this because all children figure Santa Claus out on their own. Each Santa Claus is exposed as the child grows. One by one, childish beliefs fall like dominoes. These first types of Santa Claus are for us to practice so we can get better at recognizing the more, trickier types of Santa Claus'es that are waiting for us as we grow out of one stage and into another. As we do, Santa Claus also grows out of one form and into another.
As we mature in the use of our cognitive abilities in conjunction with our emotional, spiritual and physical abilities, there is a need also for challenges to our abilities to arise in order to keep us striving for understandings.
There are so many evolving lessons to be learned throughout life, there is no room for any day to come and go without learning.
The Good & Evil Purposes Of Santa Claus'es
In addition to the two purposes stated above, Santa Claus'es are also intended to teach us principles of life related to our culture. When the culture is functioning optimally, we learn about self in relation to all else. We do not come out of Santa Claus experiences psychologically damaged believing things that were used to teach the lesson, but are fictitious when applied to real life, e.g. that white men living in cold as Hell, put on suits (uniforms - red, white or blue) and practice benevolence throughout the world. In other words, the fact that many people, who no longer believe in the Santa Claus associated with Christmas, still believe Europeans have made the world a better place through the gift of their intelligence, is proof that this type of Santa Claus believing adults have not matured in understandings enough to grow out of that developmental stage.What A Fool Believes Is What An Adult Continues To Believe
Yes, Virginia, there are Santa Claus'es for grown-ups too!Yes, Virginia, there are Boogeymen for grown-ups too!
And Yes, Virginia, they are the same things. Belief in the unreal, that exists beyond the point when we should know better, turns what is potentially helpful into logical monsters that wreak havoc in our thought processes.
A Behind The Scenes Look At Childhood And: ”The Molding Of Minds For A Lifetime Of Santa Claus'es.”
