Learning from Children
- by Thota Srinivas
Children are quite
interesting to watch, especially when they are given opportunities
to explore things hidden inside and around them. We feel that they have
much to learn from us but the fact is we have much to learn from them.
They teach us a lesson on unconditional love which is what has dried up in our hearts ; their innocence is a lesson on purity and guiltlessness; their approach to new things is a lesson on thirst for learning; their idea of fun teaches us how to be our own self; their varying levels of distraction teaches us how to get rid of things that pester and fester us; their emotional outbursts teach us how to unburden our heart and mind brimming with guilt and agony instead of getting rotten with poisoned thoughts; they know not how to conspire and destroy others thus giving us hints about harmonious living; ignorant are they of what happens in their future thus letting us know how to value the present; forgetful are they about what happened in their past thus they teach us how futile it is to dwell in the past.
We are
hypocrites. We move about in a mantle called artificiality and
impersonation.
Behind
our smile which seems to be a welcoming gesture is frustration and
disagreement;
Beneath
our acceptance is our rejection; our screams are hidden by sighs and nods;
We shake
others' hands when we actually want to punch them on their nose
our personality is
multidimensional,
our thoughts are enigmatic,
our motives are mysterious,
our acts are ambiguous,
our emotions are insincere,
our feelings are fake,
our speech is misleading and
our persona is polluted.
Yet we
walk with an air of a being poised to spread harmony and goodness.
Here
begins a real conflict between the internal forces and the external elements,
between what
is known
and what is unknown, between what is true and what is fake, between
what is concealed and what is exposed.
A man in
his cloak of impersonation works up to deceive all the people sometimes and
some people all the times but fails to understand that he can't do this
with all the people all the times.
What are
we trying to prove with a life that is fragile and
transient, with a personality that is self-contradictory and
inconsistent, with an attitude that is susceptible to debasement ?
We are leading a fake life!
A life that is lifeless, listless and purposeless. And in this process we are
not just deceiving ourselves but harming as well.
Aren't our goals and aims
letting us move away from humanity and empathy?
Isn't our over thinking and over involvement feeding on our contentment
and happiness?
Is this what we are bestowing upon the children in the disguise of
sagacious elders?
Is this how we want them to be when they grow up?
Is this why we enclose them in unfair and unreasonable rules and
restrictions?
If this
is what they are destined to become it's good that we step down to unlearn the
things we have learnt in the process of becoming an adult and relearn
the things left behind from the children around us.
Immature
and harmless innocence is a boon while mature and harmful intelligence is a
bane.
by Thota Srinivas