“Good children do
their homework on time; their writing is neat; they keep their bedroom tidy;
they are often a little shy; they want to help their parents; they use their
brakes while cycling down a hill.” [The School of Life: An Emotional
Education by Alain de Botton et al]
The world wants
good children. Moulding good children is apparently the only purpose of the
very existence of parents and schools. This is one of the gravest injustices
done to children.
The excessive need
for compliance shown by the good child, the eagerness to please others, and the
unquenchable thirst for appreciation are signs of a subdued existence. The good
child is a bud that won’t bloom. It is a nestling that won’t fly, at least not
far enough. The good child is a bland breeze that carries no tang.
The good child
chooses such compliance maybe out of love for a depressed parent who makes it
clear that she couldn’t cope with more problems. The good child may be trying
to soothe a violent parent. The good child is being good for somebody else. The
good child is being somebody else.
The good child is
often a sponge that absorbs a terrible lot of unpleasantness on behalf of
parents or others who matter. The goodness is the silence of the cemetery.
The good child is
a storehouse of secrets and mysteries. When he grows up he may say lovely
things, things that mesmerise huge audiences. His words may have the power to
sway the trees and move the mountains. But there will lie a whole raging ocean
deep within his being, an ocean whose rage will be visible to none, until one
day the buried thoughts and feelings will erupt in God knows what forms.
The rage may not
explode in some. They will continue to live like automatons programmed by
somebody, doing things mechanically. Even the basic human urge for sex will
hesitate to approach them. Purity is one of the integral elements that make up
the good child. Sex has its natural and necessary extremes that lie at the
other end of the spectrum of goodness, the wrong end. So the good children will
disavow their desires and detach themselves from their bodies. Or perhaps they
will “give in to their longings in a furtive, addictive, disproportionate or
destructive way that leaves them feeling disgusted and distinctly frightened.”
[Alain de Botton et al]
The good children
will grow up physically and go to work like others. They will face more
problems at work than others. As a child, you could manage to be good by
following the rules, not making trouble, and avoiding provocation of any sort.
It is impossible to go on doing that in the adult world. The adult world is a
world of Brownian movement. Every moment you are knocked by somebody or the
other. And usually knocked the wrong way.
“Almost everything
interesting, worth doing or important will meet with a degree of opposition,”
as the authors cited above put it. Even the best plan of yours will be
subverted by somebody in your office. (Don’t be surprised if that ‘somebody’
turns out to be your best friend.) Every noble ambition has to face and
overcome disaster and ignominy. The good ‘child’ can’t endure all that. So he
will succumb to a mediocre existence. He will try his best to keep other people
pleased so that his mediocrity does not become another problem to himself.
Come on, you don’t
have to be so good.
Come to terms with
imps and demons that haunt your psychological innards. Your parents or other
people have put them there. They were helpless too. They had their own inner
monsters to deal with. Isn’t life largely about dealing with demons and
monsters – some within us and others out there?
Yes, maturity is
nothing short of fixing up a frank and bold relationship with your inner
darkness.
You don’t have to
be so good. You have every right to live your life happily without having to
sprinkle rose petals on the paths of the others. What makes you happy may not
please the others. Never mind. You be happy. Without having to steal the air
from their inflated balloons, of course.
Do you want a
genuinely good life for yourself? You deserve it. But it is your choice. If you
really want that, you may have to be bad sometimes. Be fruitfully and bravely
bad. No great inventor or philosopher was a physically grown ‘good child’.
PS. This is powered by #BlogchatterA2Z
Read the previous parts of this series below:
A: Absurdity
D: Delusions
Tomorrow:
Humanism
"The excessive need for compliance shown by the good child, the eagerness to please others, and the unquenchable thirst for appreciation are signs of a subdued existence." - So true!
ReplyDelete🙏
DeleteWell said Sir, the excessive need to please others and obey parents are the signs that show acquiesce rather than the individuality. We are not giving wings to fly for our kids when we do like this
ReplyDeleteWings to fly... Precisely. That's just what we should give to our children. Instead we give them straitjackets.
DeleteBeing good is such a burden-more so for children!
ReplyDeleteBeing good for others' sake is a burden.
Delete"The adult world is a world of Brownian movement. Every moment you are knocked by somebody or the other. And usually knocked the wrong way." This is the best summary of reality and the stark reality of life ever.
ReplyDeleteRather tragic situation. The next post on Humanism suggests a remedy.
DeleteThis is like a mirror of the existent society ! Adult world is so different and I must confess this is my best read of the day. Thank you for penning this down.
ReplyDeleteThank you for being here on a marathon read today.
DeleteAs an educator, I have always maintained that naughty children are the ones who achieve something in life. They are the high spirited ones and the ones that bring a classroom to life. I agree with your viewpoint in this post.
ReplyDeleteI'm a teacher myself and i encourage my students to be forthright with their feelings and opinions. Of course, i teach in a missionary school.
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