Why does it take age to make us wise? Is it wisdom that makes us stop giving advice? Is it just the fact that we are too cautious to take the right step? Well I had the privilege to be invited to a talk by three young people who were proud of their achievements. I went with an open mind to receive wisdom.
I still haven’t crossed the barricade of using 7 percent of my brain! But these days because I have the time and inclination I have decided to enrich my mind (Though being stubborn it’s a Herculean task!) through various ways and means. I read the newspaper, watch news on the TV, surf the net and debate with anyone who has the time to spare! I am after all unemployed (my resume now reads a tolerable housewife, termagant wife, nagging mother…….)
There I was in a darkened auditorium listening to the ideas of these youngsters. There were wonderful things they had done; they had made a difference to the world; they shared their dreams with the audience. Dreams of a wonderful political system sans the corruption and bureaucracy and the red tapism that comes with it; dreams where everyone was honest and safe; dreams where all were equal leading to a classless society; where life was one big party! (Their words)
Did you notice that I put an exclamation mark at the end of the last paragraph? Let me clarify it was not put there to express my disbelief. It was put there to show solidarity. How you may ask? Well I was young once, I too had had these dreams, but age and experience took them away ruthlessly. I remember my betters advising me about certain aspects of life and me mutely listening to them yet never accepting the facts. Like someone said advice is for free- the wise never give them and the fools never take them! So why give advice?
I was swallowed up in the darkness. Yet for a moment in time I was back in my University auditorium getting up to enter the limelight to argue and discourse on this Utopian picture being built up. I had unconsciously risen and then sanity took over and I slowly sat down to clap for the speaker. I had never felt so impatient in my life; I felt claustrophobic and rose to leave the place as silently as I had come. I felt old and tired- there was this beautiful picture painted with hesitant words which I know and most of us who are prosaic know is only a fantasy on one hand and on the other hand I saw a rudderless Ship drifting on the vast ocean of reality!
There are too many adjectives to describe my feelings at that time but what they need is not adjectives, they need guidance, love and practical inputs. Who will give that to them? Junu says it is easy to give armchair advice and how do I know what they are doing is not right?
Well I am trying to be wise, so have not proffered any advice but what I know is that painting a picture is much easier than constructing one. As I analyze myself I realize that I am finding what the wrongs are and not trying to highlight what are the rights in the ideas. But I beg to remind all that one small screw not tightened can lead to the collapse of the building and there is no scope for mistakes in real life.
It is absolutely necessary to encourage a child when he has made mistakes for he needs it to build his confidence; it is equally necessary to be brutally honest with a young adult’s tentative foray into an uncharted territory for this is serious and real!
What right do I have to crush someone’s dreams? Should I not let them make and learn from their own mistakes? Unfortunately I am a mother and this makes me feel for them; I am like the blind seer who sees yet cannot explain how; I hope for once that I am wrong and they are right!
The Parallel World 