Ouch! Does a “pain of awareness” aways attend the loss of innocence?
A. Yes. When you lose innocence, you recognize the forces of good and evil, and experience the pain of that knowledge and the accompanying responsibility. Remember the Edenic Legend of when humans were given the ability to know the difference between good and evil? That’s when we became consciously and instinctively aware of right and wrong ways of living to perfect ourselves both as individuals and as a species. Man also realized that this choice is in our hands. Paradise was lost. And so was our naivete when God said, “This day I have set before thee good and evil. Choose thou.” Our development is forever altered whenever these facts-of-life are truly registered. Congratulations! You’ve passed the threshhold into the world of effects.
