is lost innocence really costing us anything?

among other pasttimes, i enjoy baseball. not just the games, but the entire business of the sport. the contracts, the marketing, the off-season trades and free agent signings. all of it. it's a living breathing soap opera.

one of that novella's current narratives is performance enhancing drugs in all their supposedly nefarious forms: steroids, human growth hormone, ampetamines, etc. i discovered this article from the baltimore sun's rick maese logging the lies by oriole jay gibbons over the last few years prior to admitting to using hgh after the paper trail wrapped him tightly to his unacknowledged truth. the piece's final point about lost innocence is one that has nearly all sportwriters and fans have used to this loss to besmirch the game and bemoan the state of modern sporting contests. after all, they would say, how can we watch these games now with the same sense of awe and wonder knowing what we know? knowing that the performances are not based on talent and hard work, but on manipulation and purchased enhancements. knowing that the feats we once marveled at were obtained by prescription, not perspiration.

i get the part of that lament that decries the displaced awe that we once trained on our sporting heroes. but as a general rule, i believe the loss of innocence is not only a natural part of the cycle of life, but a very healthy part of it that we need in order to live. i don't believe lost innocence is to be mourned like a deceased loved one. rather it should be bid good riddance like acne because it is a relic of our smaller-minded selves; younger incarnations who believed blindly in things and rarely questioned why.

perpetual innocence about the world is prohibitive and deleterious. it denies us adulthood, maturity, self-assurance. it constricts us within a supposed utopia of supermen (and womyn!!) who should inspire us to reach for ever greater heights by showing us what is possible. innocence is the blanket we drape over ourselves after our parents tuck us in so we can avail ourselves to worlds of fantasy through comic books and young adult romance novels. worlds where good guys always win and love is always true.

well, that's fantastic, literally, but i'll take reality thanks. i prefer to know what's real and what isn't. i like the self-confidence i earn when i conquer misunderstanding and mythology. what in the world do i gain by being innocent? nothing. by being rational, i maintain a greater control over my own life and can better manage the inevitable losses and pain that living in the real world will bring. innocence, at best, is the temporary shield from hurt that a child is bestowed by his/her parents. but that shield never lasts, and its protection is fleeting. because good guys don't always win and love isn't always true.

so i say, "piss off" to innocence and walk calmly and assuredly through life knowing the truth adn knowing it empowers me. knowing that innocence is ephemeral, but truth is everlasting. knowing that my lost innoncence is really gained wisdom.