James

So Mr. Walker haughtily declares that I have no obvious function. Does he also scorn the sun for shining too warmly or sneer at the sea for being too wet? I am a child’s toy. My gift, my friends, is that I have no obvious function. ### Our youngest generations are withering under the iron tyranny of obvious function. They’ve seen recess eliminated in their schools because it has no obvious function. Art classes are dismissed as a posh luxury because they lack an obvious function. Hard, sober men in gray flannel suits lambaste the liberal arts for their absence of obvious function. ### But in some ways, it starts with you. You compel your babies to listen to Bach so someday they’ll be branded as gifted. You hand them a ball and put them on a team, where coaches take the innocent joy of play and grind it into a grim will to win. You dispatch them to soup kitchens and homeless shelters not to open their ears to the cry of the poor, but to provide them a juicy theme for their application essay. Every blessed thing, it seems, must have its obvious function. ### Are we smothering their yearning to imagine? Do they still have the power to dream? Can their well-meaning elders just let them be rather than endlessly driving them to do? Or is it all about victory and achievement and moving on up and filling in the bubbles of a Scantron sheet? ### In my 60 years, I have lived in toy chests all over this land. I’ve been a head chopper, an earth mover, and an alien invader from Mars. I’ve been a puzzle piece, a pirate ship, and a dizzying amusement park ride. They’ve rolled me, slammed me, dropped me, and thrown me. They’ve dunked me in the bathtub and scribbled on my face. ### It is true -- I am homely, humble and old. I have no obvious function. So throw down a dollar, take me home from this thrift shop, and hand me over to your child. She won’t require instructions. She’ll know exactly what I can do.