Childhood is not ordinary. For years we continue to be amazed by ordinary things around us. We question everything. All answers are not comforting, most induce doubts and queries. The lack of answers to the mysteries that surround us can be annoying. One feels lonely attempting to find them all. Unfortunately, everything is a mystery. As we grow up, things begin to look ordinary. Curiosity, if not missing, becomes less impulsive. Growing up involves accepting, accumulating answers. Now, questions. Any venture into the unknown is dampened by the fear of failure.
I spent many monsoon afternoons in the balcony playing with rain drops. Curiosity was my companion. It made me come up with questions that swirled like butterflies in my mind.
Journeys that begin with a question may not always have a gratifying destination. The destination, an answer, sometimes does not match up to the imagined one. On other occasions, it exceeds expectations. Learning that water drops evaporate to the sky and come back as rain was as amazing as discovering that there are colors we can’t see or noises we cannot hear. However, I have learnt that now. In the very instant of learning, I pushed questions aside to be replaced by a new set of ones. The cycle continued. More questions, whether fulfilled or not, were associated with answers.
These associations make up common sense. Answers are widely known and deemed ordinary. No one aspires to be ordinary. Any venture into the unknown is dampened by the fear of failure that stands between us and prospective inquisitive journeys. It stops us early and convinces that the answers are known.
