Naivety

"Naivety is the sister of innocence and the cousin of stupidity." ~ Pierre Decourcelle.

Though at times bliss, naivety brinks on pure idiocy.
Ignorance, ingenuousness, guilelessness, immaturity, unworldliness--however you want to dress it up, it's the lack of experience.
Now, it isn't necessarily a bad thing. Everyone and everything starts out completely naive. Babies minds picture the world in the brightest light and avoid incriminating anyone. But as the mind ages, becomes much easier to assume ulterior motives from others. It makes us distrustful, but also more cautious.
The most difficult part of being naive, is knowing that you are. Instead of growing out of that childlike set of mind, it sticks around. And the longer it does, the more issues it causes. I, for one, tend to act like this occasionally. At this point in my life, it's not as if I don't know. However, changing my inclinations truly does feel like the most difficult thing in the world. The other side appears so cynical. Doubting people, keeping to yourself, aware of the system's flaws. It sounds awful.
Though, I'm slowly making that transition, because awareness is more than useful in so many ways. For example, I took my SAT about a month ago. Ideally, it would be a measurement of knowledge to present to colleges. A "this is how much of everything I learned in thirteen years," just as a way to ensure you weren't just a lucky duck who could breeze right through grade and high school without picking up anything. But it's not. The SAT simply measures your test taking skills. How well can you figure out an exam and its tricks to then do well on it. There are about a million SAT programs, tips, advice, etc. A bunch of dumb rules like "do the math sections back to front" or "don't read the whole passage; only skim for answers." Truly, all these rules are just cheats, yes? However, if you were to ignore it all and sit down and try to test like you would've back in grade school, you will fail. The SAT isn't a measurement of one's knowledge, it's of their test taking skills.
What keeps a person trapped in naivety are situations like this. The more you open your eyes to something, the more unfair it'll appear. And quite frankly, that's the point. Naivety protects a person from ever thinking bad of anything they want to think good of. However, it doesn't defend them from those things. The person will face these challenges head on and will be forced out of their head.
However, to assume naivety as all bad is beyond false. The spark of childish innocence, that's where hopes and dreams come from. It's able to envision a future too good to be true, and use it to motivate you. It's not enough to focus on one or the other, you need a balance. Like everything else in life, they pull against each other, but need to still be used simultaneously. Maturity to keep you grounded with a backup plan, and immaturity to push you to reach as high as you can. Sometimes, realism unfiltered blocks out anything that isn't likely to happen.
And really, so what?
So what if what I want is near impossible? I see myself doing it, so I will strive.