I think of my own childhood as a happy one, though it occurred in the midst of World War II and was not without its mishaps, tears and conflicts. Children — today's as well as yesterday's — are remarkably adaptable. Children, with no basis for comparison, tend to accept the world they're born into. It's one of the processes of growing up to learn that everything you once accepted as natural is not always good or useful or applicable.

I used to wonder why my children were singularly uninterested in Western movies. One day, I realized the answer. The elements of the Western story had been a part of my childhood — barbed-wire fences, cattle, plows, wagons, mules, horses, farms and guns. My children knew none of this. They were born in the space and computer age in an urban environment. They could relate to "Star Wars," but not to "How the West Was Won."

I do believe that television, from just mere overexposure to the world, has taken some of the zest out of life. I still remember the thrill the first time I saw the Atlantic Ocean. Of course, I'd seen pictures of it in magazines and in movies, mostly black-and-whites, but the real ocean was a sensory experience that I remember to this day. I wonder if children still feel the same way.

Mystery is the father of hope, and since knowledge is the enemy of mystery, it is also the enemy of hope. There is no sadder sight in the world to me than to see a teenager with ennui. A number of years ago, there was a terrible popular song, the chorus of which was "Is that all there is?" How terrible it must be for a 13- or 14-year-old to be bored, with nothing to look forward to.

I believe the secret of a happy life is to retain a child's sense of wonder and expectation. Science has grown arrogant in our time and has become more of an ideology than a search for truth. I don't believe for one moment in evolution; in natural selection, yes, but not the crazy notion that a million different species came from a single-cell organism. There is not one scintilla of evidence to support that theory.

The same goes for cosmological theories. They like to say the universe began with the big bang. OK, what was the stuff that went bang, and where did it come from? They don't have a clue. And if there is a boundary to the universe, what's on the other side? Again, not a clue.

A lot of humans are arrogant little twits, but what we know compared with what we don't know is a teacup compared with the ocean. The notion that the universe just happened by accident is far, far more improbable than the notion that it was created by a power we don't yet understand.

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea for parents with small children to dump the television, or at least severely restrict what small children can watch. A lot of pseudoscience is to be found on the airwaves. Furthermore, watching television or a movie is a passive experience that is done with an inactive brain. Reading requires active brain use and encourages imagination.

It would be a good idea to protect children from materialism, which is America's main philosophy these days. Talk about the phrase "Is that all there is?" Materialism is a dead end and a good way to waste a life. That leads to the role models for children. The commercial entertainment industry, as corrupt as any Mafia, produces role models that are for the most part cynical, sleazy and stupid.

Children should also be protected from sociologists who want them to answer intimate questions about sex at far too young an age, and, of course, from quacks who want to prescribe mind-altering drugs. If a child is bored and fidgety in class, you might want to look at the school environment and the dumbed-down curricula before you start pumping drugs into him.