A neighbor’s little boy of about six, wide-eyed and still full of wonder, curiously peeped
through our cyclone-wired portion of the fence and asked me quite candidly, are you
fixing your house?’ I was at first tempted to mimic his tiny shrill voice by answering him
with another question ‘Why, is it broken?’ However, I merely replied yup because, come
to think of it, renovation in a way, is still very much like fixing too.
As always, the straightforwardness that children possess aplenty provides us with an
endless supply of amusement. How they express raw feelings, without their usual filters,
is so unlike that of their more matured or domesticated counterparts. Perhaps, this is
also another reason for our fondness, despite the shock value that often comes with it.
At another time, a different neighbor’s kid came by with his nanny and upon peering
through the door exclaimed flatly, our place was “pangit” or ugly, compared to their
house nearby which had recently been renovated. Loudly shushed by the nan, I in turn,
shushed her back to just let him be. For me, calling it as he saw it was just fine, for now,
that is. Bummer for some, life lessons on manners and politeness will have to come any
time soon, if they’re to be accepted in this square-peg-of-a-world.
And yet in other many other ways, this perspective of children, calling a spade a spade,
but expressed with total innocence, is just one of their many superpowers. This is why,
especially today, this unique sense of wonderment, which we all possessed in great
quantity once upon a time, comes with a very specific tag: Fragile. As all superpowers
go, there are opposing powers which act like kryptonite to weaken or neutralize them.
The most potent of these, is the word “NO!”
I must have seen hundreds of children stopped dead in their tracks, merely by the
utterance and loud incantation of that one particular word. The double-whammy effect is
likewise most certain once this seemingly magical word is said aloud by a person of
authority, such as a parent or a teacher, who subsequently is overly influential in the
child’s developing world. Whenever I encounter such episodes whereby a little person is
admonished sharply on the streets or wherever I am at the moment, I am immediately
reminded of a Neil deGrasse Tyson interview where he discussed children’s curiosity,
“They are experimenting with their environment. Everything is new to them”.
Exploration is key, as most memes are coined, and it is the mold from which we all
learn. To derail it has consequences. Now back to my wide-eyed little neighbor asking
about me fixing our house, how I wish I have enough time to entertain all his queries. In
fact, I sincerely wish for more than that. I wish that, despite thousands of “NO”s and
“don’t-do-that”s he will surely encounter during his exploration of the world, I wish the
child inside never dies and that his curiosity never wanes.
