Prelude from http://www.localgroup.net/moaw/front.html
Prelude
Wade was a boy of three
He knew he was on top of the world
No one else knew this
Wade kept this secret to himself.
He looked at adults and wondered
Why do they appear as they do?
Don't they know that they too can be on top of the world?
As a boy of five Wade was different than others
He lived in a much different world than adults
His world was amazing, beautiful, rich
Everything he desired was available to him
But Wade did not understand why adults
Were not also filled with joy
Is there something adults know that Wade doesn't?
Wade grew to a boy of ten
Wonder, joy, and excitement
There was no end
Why don't adults participate in this?
Are they acting out an unspoken fate?
As a boy of twelve Wade became aware
That wonder and excitement has a cost
He also learned that in kids his age all was lost
What has happened, who is to blame?
How could everyone lose their youth, fortune, and fame?
Wade looked around and learned
That the way to adulthood was to surrender
By the time he was a teenager
Wade was like everyone else
How simple life became, he knew just what to do
Simply follow others, they'll tell you.
So all was set from now to death
Wade would remain alive until his last breath
He grew into his twenties like everyone else
Joy and happiness slipping away.
Wade was becoming an adult
He was no longer on top of the world
Now he was like everyone else.
Thinking about death five decades from now
He is aware that his years flew by, but how?
Then he thought about those childhood days
Of wonder and awe, of pleasure and fun
It's over now, but did it really have to end?
Is a life void of passion his destiny too?
He looked high, he looked low
He looked left, he looked right
He looked forward, he looked backward
And as far as he could see
A life void of passion was Wade's destiny.
Wade no longer wanted to be an adult
If it meant the end of passion, wonder, joy, and happiness
But what could he do, where could he go?
The world of adults was all he had come to know.
Maybe, just maybe
There is something more
Something beyond this world
Where everyone experiences boundless excitement
Or is this only a dream?
Wishful thinking, a fantasy, an illusion?
No matter how much he tried
He just could not be like everyone else
In a passionless life, Wade became a misfit
Without wonder and joy, he just didn't belong.
Then one day he found himself outside the real world
Outside the real world of poverty, sickness, and death
All doors closed shut on Wade
Try hard again to fit in, yes he did
But through the cracks he fell
Others said he was a misfortunate soul
For not being a part of the real world.
Tears poured from Wade's eyes whenever he thought
That he could not live out his fate like a normal adult
Wade was a misfit in the real world
Would he have to resign his life to an unreal world instead?
Answers he must seek out
If he is to know what to do
And that was the answer
To search for answers.
Wade then discovered something few wanted to know
Wade the outcast was no outcast at all
His miserable condition was no misery at all
What could this be?
A mind-created reality?
Or was this real, more real than the real world?
While looking for answers outside the adult's world
Wade learned something known to no adult
A world of eternal passion does exist
When he looked into the sky at night
He saw it glowing bright
And a shift in his thinking
Propelled him into that world of happiness once again
This time forever.
Wade was once again on top of the world
But this time he was armed with new knowledge
Knowledge beyond the real world of suffering and death
Knowledge few wanted to know.
Wade's knowledge let him think in radically new ways
Amazingly, this is how all children under six think
Now he knows that he thinks like they do
And they are on top of the world.
Will this new knowledge enable everyone
To leave the world of suffering and death?
By thinking in new ways
Will everyone enter the all-powerful world
Filled with wonder and excitement?