Of Adults, Children and Metaphors.

I have to warn you, this is a rant.

I have always wondered how, when as a kid, you have some anomaly, you are always convinced that it would be alright once you're old enough. If you had a premature puberty, you would be convinced that in a few years, it would all be okay. If you had premature gray-hair, (like I did) you'd think, in twenty years what difference would gray hair make. For me, this sort of underscores the point of this post- that humans grow uglier as they grow old. And not just physically.

When you're born as a wrinkly two-foot piece of meat with a hose pipe in your belly, you're probably ugly (not to your mom, of course). But then, so is an uncut diamond. unlike a simple diamond, though, it takes years to shape a human, to cut it to perfection. The world has a funny way of cutting diamonds, and it is as far from perfect as perfect can be. When you're born, you're beautiful. No matter what your shortcomings, you're still beautiful. Your Conscience does not even know it exists, which is, in my humble opinion, the best state of being for Conscience. You are completely at peace with yourself, and care the least for the cares of the world. That's why you're beautiful.

As they grow up, in Salman Rushdie's words, children become the vessels into which adults pour their poison. WarhatredgreedI'm-better-than-you-because-you're-lowborn. Divisions begin to appear, as like chinks made by an unskilled diamond-cutter. Children don't lose their innocence... It is murdered, beaten to death by the myriad misgivings and prejudices of adults around them. Adults are acting out a play rehearsed a million times in history, a play whose writers are forgotten in time.

One could always say, in the spirit of the Lord of the flies, that a natural order will always emerge, no matter the influence of the society. After all, envy, cupidity, anger and lust are human emotions, and children are no exception. Yes, and this is why a perfect diamond cutter is needed. One who can cut out the rough edges these emotions create. Parents are expected to burden this superhuman task, but then, parents are only humans, fallible, gullible, meek and prone to err. They have already been cut and ground into rough, unshaped or misshapen diamonds with their own noses to the grindstone.

I'm now tired, and will stop. My own own future is clouded with dirt, and it bothers me that my only aim in life now is to clean out that dirt. If you're depressed, don't blame yourself. After all, it was Pandora's fault. But also remember that the last thing that came out of that box, was hope.