I had a fascinating conversation with friends at dinner tonight.

The proposition was that the reason we all used to take a lot of drugs (recreationally) is that when you are in that state, you are appreciating the things a child does, which is why you are amazed at shapes, colours, textures.

Once you get to the age where you are having kids of your own or your friends are (where we are, they are a bit older than me and have a 3yo and 6mo) ... you get the experience of drugs just from having your children around ... because you just see things through their eyes ... everything becomes wonderful again.

The implication is that society has evolved so that we don't have children at our optimal child-bearing age any longer (late teens / early 20s for women). So we develop alternatives ... which are only resolved once we reach the stage of procreation ourselves.

It may seem that I am digressing from this thread, but the anger at children is just not right ... maybe the anger comes from the biological urge to breed, that other people may divert into other channels (e.g. simulating child-like experiences as some of us have in the past ...).

I love having people around me who think outside the square ... I have never read a therapist comment in here yet that has come close to that level of processing