Growing up with the missed childhood…
Despite the tangle of ideas in my mind, I was young, innocent, free, and therefore almost happy.
Yesterday, I was reading Tolstoy’s Youth sitting peacefully midst the tall green banyan trees and mosquitos, who believed my blood would be delicious, I wasn’t sure of that, but they were.
When I read the above line, I thought to myself, ‘Can it be said any better?’ I had read many such lines in his writing, but this one was exceptional, it was immortal and left no one in the present, it transports you to the past when you felt the same…but just forgot what being happy was all about.
I was no exception, I went back to the time when my English teachers used to advise me to read more, but I being the stubborn topper, didn’t find it important, and used to reply, “I don’t like to read…”
It was all about numbers for me then, getting full marks in mathematics, gave me pleasure, while English grammar was something I could never understand. I never saw English beyond the grammar book, never understood the importance of stories then and the marks never got better.
Exam had an essay to write, mostly on non fictional topics, my essay’s were not good then, they always came back in red circles which were spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
I wish there were marks for a good story on a topic which you choose on your own, for which grammar could be ignored.
Something similar happened to the History classes, World War 2 was hell boring then, but today, I sit again to watch a 13 hour documentary to understand the strategies, tactics and the reason behind the events.
Maybe, I wasn’t capable of understanding it or maybe I just cared about the marks then, and mugging up dates and events was not an easy task for me or maybe I didn’t care about the world, all I cared about was the cricketing legends, where India was involved.
I can’t complain about my childhood, because nothing beats playing cricket, video games and watching cartoon network all day long, and those memories and relationships are eternal. But, some part of my childhood was left to be lived…it was missed among the other wonderful things…
I lived those missing parts, it came late, but it came…
I read Harry Potter in my first year of college, it was the first book I read for pleasure and I have never stopped ever since…
If I had been the same stubborn person, kept my ego above my mind and didn’t try to read the book one more time, then I wouldn’t have known what existed and never could have lived like the way I live today.
I consider myself fortunate, that my missing childhood came when I was growing up, probably that is the reason I am the most motivated person I know.
Growing up comes with its own tolls, the things we find pleasure from are not worth our time. Because time is valuable, and we can only do things which have value. We know the value of pleasure, but we can’t measure that value, if we can’t, then how can we prove that value to some one else, and if we can’t prove it, we question is it really valuable and that’s when pleasure looses it’s place from our life.
I know the fear we all live with, we won’t mount up to something in life, and this is the reason we try to utilise most of our time doing valuable productive tasks.
They are important, but are they worth what’s at stake, your happiness which is derived from pleasure from things which are not valuable.
I don’t know, answer it for yourself.
For me, I have assumed that I won’t mount up to anything, that way I don’t have to live under that fear anymore.
I try to find a balance between pleasure giving things and things that create value, sometimes I try to mix them up, by find pleasure in valuable things, and also think about creating value from the pleasure giving things.
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