That we create ourselves over time as the result of the decisions we make is a widely accepted perception of what has come to be understood as selfhood. We become increasingly concrete over time as we age. A natural inference from this is that there is more to the selves of adults than there is to the selves of children.

And yet, there is a sense in which this increasing concretion represents a diminution of the self. Possibilities fall away like bits of marble giving way to the sculptor’s chisel. In an important sense, we become smaller as we take on a determinate shape.

That’s part of the reason, I believe, that nearly everyone is nostalgic for childhood, independently of whether their childhood was particularly happy. The self of the child is an enormous, almost limitless collection of possibilities, a vast expanse of possibilities in which the imagination of the child luxuriates in a way that the imagination of the adult cannot. Adults fantasize, of course, about becoming rich or famous, or about career changes, about becoming an artist, or musician, or dancer, but these possibilities, if they are genuine, are heavy with the weight of improbability that does not weigh down the imaginings of the child.

There is something godlike in the vastness of the self of the child. We become human, all too human as our selves take shape over time.