“I spent some time last week looking at a photograph. It’s a picture of a boy, on a beach, turning around to face the camera. His hair is a huge blond bowl being scattered by the sea breeze; his skin is pale and white. His teeth aren’t all there, so I guess he must be somewhere between five and ten. But what struck me, more than anything, was his body language: he was stretching his arms and legs out as wide as he could, as if to say “Look at me! Look at me!” and his smile is so huge, his eyes narrowed in the sun.
I wondered what had happened to that boy, over the next thirty or so years; I wondered what had changed him from that carefree, excitable, joyous little child into a sad, soft, gloomy adult. Where is the spark? Where did it go?”