the other day in the bus, i got a seat besides a lady with her 3 year ol. they were deeply engrossed in a mother child conversation. the child lifted his hand n placed on his moms.. finger on finger... palm on palm... then moved to feel the nose.. once its moms then its own.. n so on.. as the bus moved further we passed by a cow. the mother helped the child identify the animal..."that's a cow, see it has 2 eyes jus like yours, one nose, one mouth..."
through most of the journey (until the child slept) the mother helped the kid associate with the things passing by, helping it find similarities between it and its surroundings.
in our kido times we all associate with things around us by finding similarities between us and the things around us. when do we then undergo a transition and start searching for dissimilarities?
as kidos we all are inculcated with a basic fact of life, that despite of different forms we all are essentially the same... why else do we imagine talking animals, a face for the sun, a tree with limbs? cos we associate "life" with everything around us, and believe tat everything lives, feels and reacts just like us.
as we shed the lenses of innocence, through which we see the world, differences creep in. we begin to search for how dissimilar we are, how superior to the others! And yet when we divide ourselves, we simultaneously pursue a search for more like us.
we are not stand alone units. Like almost everything in this biosphere, we are a part of another "whole". we live in communities cos they offer us shelter, protection, and more than anything else companionship. we are bound by the same sense of camaraderie that exists between all other species.yet we often fail to see others as similar to us. so how does it make a difference if we belong to one community or another? why make closed communities? why seek for more reasons to divide?
a poem by pablo neruda goes
A child's foot doesn't know it's a foot yet
And it wants to be a butterfly or an apple
But then the rocks and pieces of glass,
the streets, the stairways
and the roads of hard earth
keep teaching the foot that it can't fly,
that it can't be a round fruit on a branch.
Then the child's foot
was defeated, it fell
in battle,
it was a prisoner,
condemned to life in a shoe
And it wants to be a butterfly or an apple
But then the rocks and pieces of glass,
the streets, the stairways
and the roads of hard earth
keep teaching the foot that it can't fly,
that it can't be a round fruit on a branch.
Then the child's foot
was defeated, it fell
in battle,
it was a prisoner,
condemned to life in a shoe
if a river can pass through 2 cities, 2 states, 2 countries and still be a river.. why cant a person belong to 2 religions, 2 regions and yet be regarded as the same person?
Comments
just loved the whole post..
i love observing babies,
they teach you more than one else....:)