Dichotomy of Age

This week, I got to spend some time with my nephew. This two year old fella somehow manages to attract tons of love and attention from everyone he meets. It’s always a delight to play with him and observe him go about his day.

Observing his behavior, let me throw some ideas on how children are different from us adults and what we can learn from them.

They don’t care.

Children simply don’t care about anything. The world can burn down, they gotta do what they gotta do.

They do everything for its own sake.

They do things for the sheer pleasure of doing them. Out of curiosity, out of joy. They don’t have any outcome in mind, they do it because they want to do it.

They exhibit emotions to the fullest.

When they feel sad or hungry, they cry loudly. When they’re happy, you see them jumping around. If they like you, they’ll make sure you know that. When they’re angry, they’ll make sure everybody knows that. Then they forget about it and go back to playing.

They don’t know the concept of time.

Children don’t know that it’s lunch time, they just know that they’re hungry. They sleep when they’re out of energy and don’t have an alarm waiting for them in the morning.

They are curious about everything.

Curiosity is a natural trait and children strongly exhibit it. You give them something new and they’ll tinker around for the entire day. You take them to a new place and they’ll touch every little thing. They aren’t afraid of unfamiliarity and uncertainty.

They lack ego.

Children don’t have a sense of self. Any two children can meet and become friends instantly. They don’t have a set criteria like us. They don’t hold onto the fight that happened years ago, they forget about it the next minute.

They lack all negative emotions.

Children don’t seem to exhibit emotions like jealousy, anxiety, guilt.

They take decisions from their gut.

Children don’t have any concept of good and bad, right and wrong. They don’t have the ability to think beyond the present moment. So, all their decisions are based on one metric — whether they want to do it or not. It may or may not be right for them, but at least its their decision and not someone else’s.

It seems like children are closer to our biological selves, are more aligned with nature. How they act, how they think, how they perceive their environment, it’s more natural and vastly different from adults.

It seems as if growing up overrode our genetic programming with the man-made social programming. We suppress emotions, we retain ego in the name of self-image, and we log in eight hours of work.

It seems that the side effect of teaching children how to survive in this modern world is them losing their natural attributes. Maybe teaching them in a cage for six hours a day reduced their sense of wonder. Maybe paving the “right” path for them weakened their gut and made them dependent.

Of course, the reason children can live a care-free life is because we adults are there to care for them. And while we cannot just become children again, I think we can at least try to realign with our natural selves. That inner child who wants to show up at times, we can at least stop fighting him.

Seeing my nephew, all I think is why can’t I live like him, why can’t I be like him? Why do I care so much? Why do I take myself so seriously?

Good night,
Aachman