Okay, so maybe today I should start by offering an apology. Last week I was so engrossed in this project that it completely slipped my mind that I was to post something here. Forgive? Thanks. Now that that is out of the way let us move on to matters at hand.
A story is told of a little girl in her arts club one afternoon. When the teacher asked them to draw she set furiously to her work mustering all the concentration that only a child can. As the teacher passed by her desk she asked, “What are you drawing?” The girl looked up and said “I’m drawing God.” This startled the teacher, and so, seeking to find out more, she went on to add, “But no one knows what God looks like.” To which the girl smiled and replied, “They will in a couple of minutes.”
Sometimes I just look at children and wonder how their minds 
work. I mean, who said we have to speak to children in little voices? Why do they do what they do? Most of all, how do they manage to be so curious? In fact I know so many parents who get mad at their children because they ask too many questions. A simple question like: “Daddy, What’s this?” Might end up getting the answer, “go to your room.” Not because of any fault on the kids part but because the adult didn’t know the answer. Yet their naivety and their pure joy just makes everyone around them happy. Sure, it drives them nuts every once in a while but in the end you can’t help but love a child.
A while back I was visiting my cousin and had the chance to watch my nephew (all of 1 year old) try to master the task of changing the channels on TV. His face was contorted in such concentration as he twisted the remote control; his energies were solely focused on this
- No, that’s not my nephew.
one task at hand, then some adult wanted to watch something and, absent mindedly of course, just grabbed the remote out of his hand. The child was distraught. He cried and cried until someone gave him a bunch of keys, then he was back in the zone trying to figure out what this odd shaped metal could possibly be good for, putting it in his mouth, throwing it under the table dipping it in water, until the key owner had to leave and those were grabbed as well. The child cried until he was given a phone to play with, the cycle continued until I left.
Notice a trend. These children, the girl in the story, my nephew and even the children you know (in this case child is anyone under age 7) don’t care what people think. They pick something and go for it until they figure it out. Yet somewhere along the line we lose that, we grow up. We get knocked by the world left right and centre so much that we stop trying. In fact so much so that we give up even before we start, use terms like ‘delusions of grandeur’ and ‘over dreaming.’ I have a suggestion, let’s urn our energies away from those thoughts and focus them all completely on figuring out what to do with this bunch of keys. Let’s do all we can and if the keys are taken find something else. If there is one thing we learn from kids there’s not much time to waste wondering whether we can or whether we should. Let’s just do.
3 comments for “Dreams and Disasters”