When my mother told me "A baby is born thinking he is the universe. Then he finds out he is just the center of it," it struck me as being a very good explanation of the behavior of many young children and semi-adults. With that thought in mind I have written the following few lines:
A Short History of the Universe
He is born, self obviously, consisting of the entire universe. Shortly thereafter, however, he learns that he himself is not entirely the universe, only that he is the grand and central focus thereof, round which revolve the sources of relief to his insatiable desires and needs, which must necessarily be fulfilled upon demand. After which, these providers of his needs take on forms and personalities, such as Daddy, Mommy and any contingent entities in the form of siblings, however less vital to his supply chain they may be. About these siblings a subtle shadow of suspicion begins to form in his mind (though not yet formed in words) that these are personalities who have some sense of self outside of his orbit and needs and desires that do not always coincide with his own. And though he finds these parents and siblings admirable and entertaining in spite of himself, he, much to his sorrow, comes to find that, within their plane of orbit around himself, these satellites have had some preexisting claims upon each other which at times preclude and delay the fulfillment of his demands. No time of day is this more markedly apparent than at Bedtime at which point he is fed, changed and relegated to a dark, warm and quiet place called Bed while everything else goes on without him in a grand center-less fete. When he succumbs to sleep he awakens to find that during the evening party the rest of the universe has changed into pajamas and crawled into their own beds and gotten very quiet, out of which they must all be alarmed into wakefulness and turning lights on again because he is hungry, wet and bored.
He begins to find that his universe is more complex than his original estimation thereof, and begins to see patterns emerge in the arrangement of authorities and relationships. (Mommy is actually found to have had a mommy herself, and as it turns out -the culprit is Grandma!) And other small people as himself are found to be the offspring of far more distant planets such as other adults who are for general purposes dismissible, unless they have failed to satisfactorily educate their young into the proper order of the universe, in which case our subject finds himself, not the center of a subject and adoring, longing audience of peers watching him play with all available toys, but the hapless victim of a usurper and destroyer of his recreational joys. In which case, all grown ups, not just the guardians of the intruders but any and all present, who do not rush to mollify his moral exigency have incomprehensibly failed their natural duty. The first taste of an outrageously violated sense of fundamental justice and the beginnings of a realization that his parental moons shine a flawed light come when he first digests the sweetly spoken words, "let's share!" This is a concept at once so impossible in its incongruity that it would almost hold a mathematical fascination for his mind if he were actually at leisure to entertain it. Instead he must devote all his energies to play his own advocate at court of law, dig in his little heels and stand up for everything he has ever known! Unfortunately a crack develops in his universe, and a higher court of law shows him a new view of himself and his surroundings. Like Galileo and his telescope, he sees, no longer just with the naked eye, but through another set of eyes, the eyes of empathy. This light of understanding is blinding in its penetration: he realizes the other small person has feelings like himself. His heart trembles at his new understanding. His will, however, is less capable of such a generous about-face: At once he realizes that the ramification of his new perspective comprehends a complete and utter loss of sole proprietorship. Therefore, he is by sheer force of will able to cling to his original principles with a kind of duplicity that is able to admit the idea that "sharing" and "not sharing" can exist as parallel universes, as long as the latter is where he is allowed to remain.
