I have Peter Pan tattooed on my arm. Let me tell you why he means so much to me, and what he really stands for — not just in stories, but in the way writers and thinkers understand childhood itself.
When I was young, I didn’t get the soft, safe childhood that many children do. Life pushed me to grow up quickly, to understand things too early, and to protect myself in ways a child shouldn’t have to. But somewhere inside me, there was still a tiny spark that refused to die — a spark of imagination, wonder, humour, hope. That little spark kept me alive, and in many ways, Peter Pan represents that part of me.
Most people think Peter Pan is just a boy who refuses to grow up. But his name comes from the ancient Greek god Pan — the wild spirit of nature.
Pan wasn’t gentle or civilised. He was half-human, half-goat, with horns, hooves, and an erect phallus, which represented nature’s raw life-force. He was joyful and frightening, beautiful and wild, playful and powerful. He stood for the part of the world that adults try to tame but never truly can.
E. M. Forster wrote a story called The Story of a Panic, where Pan appears not as a monster but as a force of pure, natural joy. The adults in the story are terrified of him because they’ve forgotten what it feels like to be free. But the boy who feels Pan’s presence becomes alive in a way the grown-ups can’t understand.
Peter Pan is exactly that kind of spirit.
He is childhood in its raw, untamed form — full of imagination, wildness, fearlessness, and joy. The kind of childhood that today’s world has almost forgotten.
And that brings me to another writer: William Blake.
Blake wrote two famous collections of poems — Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.
In the Songs of Innocence, he spoke about childhood as a sacred, magical time — a world full of wonder, trust, and imagination.
In the Songs of Experience, he showed how the world crushes that innocence — with fear, cruelty, knowledge that comes too early, and responsibilities a child shouldn’t carry.
Even in Blake’s time, adults worried that children were losing innocence too quickly.
Today, it’s even worse. Children know everything too soon — violence, death, betrayals, cruelty, adult worries long before they’re ready. There’s no time to dream. No time to play. No time to believe in magic.
And that is why Peter Pan matters to me.
Peter represents the child inside us who refuses to let the world take away its light.
He stands for the part of the human spirit Blake called “innocence” — not naïve, not foolish, but open-hearted and imaginative. The part that trusts, loves, laughs, and sees beauty.
In today’s world, people sometimes say Peter Pan is selfish or uncaring. They judge him by adult standards. They make Hook the hero and turn Peter into the villain. But that’s not how J. M. Barrie wrote him. Barrie loved Peter because Peter lived outside time, outside rules, outside the heaviness of adulthood. He wasn’t meant to behave like a grown-up — he was meant to represent the one thing adults can’t fully control: the spirit of childhood.
Peter forgets not because he is cruel, but because he lives in the eternal now.
He doesn’t understand time because no one ever protected him long enough to teach him.
He isn’t irresponsible — he is free.
And freedom, real freedom, scares adults who have forgotten how to dream.
That’s why I don’t agree with people who villainise Peter today. They see him from the perspective of experience, but forget the value of innocence.
Peter Pan is not a warning about immaturity.
He’s a reminder that even when life is difficult, we must protect the small, bright, imaginative part of ourselves.
The part that still believes in flying.
The part that still wants to explore forests and seas.
The part that hasn’t given up.
So when you see this tattoo, know that it isn’t about refusing to be an adult.
It’s about holding on to wonder.
Holding on to joy.
Holding on to innocence in a world that tries to steal it too fast.
It’s about remembering that the wild spark inside us — like Pan, like Peter, like Blake’s innocent child — deserves to live.
And that spark is what kept me alive.
Hearts Still Care 