Daily Times

“I wonder why a child will paint the crow purple whereas an adult will never paint it other than black. Maybe for a child, the world is as he commands and desires and for an adult, the world is a set of rules and restrictions that never let him paint a crow in purple”

“It is not common to find a “brilliant” student equally good in sports and vice-versa. Their health is completely ignored and all that is left for them is to fill up their report cards with A+ grades.”

I remember writing a diary of a child living in the war zone. It was an assignment given to me when I was in the fourth grade but I still remember it vividly. I wrote the best diary among all students and the creativity and imagination were deceptive of reality. I still recall that how much I enjoyed creative writing and what I miss the most is how easy it was for me back then to write something purely out of my inventive world.

As I got older, I followed a very clichéd path like my fellows. I went on to take biology as my major in matriculation and then pre-medical in the college. And as I moved up the educational ladder, my baggage of glimmers, stars and pixies were lost somewhere along the way. All that was left for me was to cram and reproduce it on the paper as it was the only way to get good marks.

That grinding pressure to get into medical university still haunts me. Life became miserable, a constant struggle to keep up with things. Like all my equals and majority of the students of pre-medical, we were living our lives in managing our college attendance and academy papers. For a moment, it felt like the world is limited to medical and engineering. I was bitterly disappointed with this system. It affects the mental and physical health of the students. The life of a teenager in our society is critically imbalanced. It is not common to find a “brilliant” student equally good in sports and vice-versa. Their health is completely ignored and all that is left for them is to fill up their report cards with A+ grades.

After completing my degree in Mass Communication, I still believe that a younger version of me would be better in writing fairy tales than the qualified person I am today. This lack of creativity is not only limited to writing but also in the options we consider in our lives. There is a severe lack of focus in the educational sector starting from the very basic and most important institute, school. We do not let our children wander freely in their utopia. We always try to bring them close to “reality” constricting them in narrow silos from which they can’t escape throughout their lives. Why we don’t encourage them to think big and bold? Why can’t we let them say that they want to be the first astronaut from Pakistan to go into space, to land on the moon or to develop a hospitable environment on Mars? Why is that we discourage our daughters to be snipers or to be the next world leader? Why are we always telling them that the things they dream of have no “scope” in our society? Why do we want to limit them to one society? Why can’t we say to them that “Yes we believe in you, go conquer the world”. We always train them to be henchmen and to be a part of the mainstream. Like a herd of sheep, we are trained to follow in the footsteps of our elders and to never stray away from the path “destined” for us.

We are first limited by our elders and then we limit ourselves. Why should we settle for less when we are destined for Greatness? How can we lead the world when all we are producing are subordinates or followers rather than leaders?
I wonder why a child will paint the crow purple whereas an adult will never paint it other than black. Maybe for a child, the world is as he commands and desires and for an adult, the world is a set of rules and restrictions that never let him paint a crow in purple.

As an adult we are similar to a dull mortal who just follows the rules, makes up with the needs of his family, goes to work, meet some friends, spend time with the loved ones, sleep and then repeat. But of course, we go for vacations because we are not boring as everybody else and have an aesthetic sense to enjoy natural beauty. Also, it makes us “cool” in front of our colleagues and friends for whom we post our #vacations photos. After all, we need the approval and appreciation of our peers and all our lives are centered upon getting the most attention and to be the most popular in the group. Sigh!

In our chaotic lives, there is no room for silence to dwell into our thoughts or to think about striving for our self-actualization. We are infinite sources of energy, not because of our capabilities but because of the All-Mighty that created us. How often do we think about our existence and our place in the world? We have become slaves of the system and our vision is obstructed by the materialistic world that does not allow reverie.

A lot needs to be changed around here. We need to start believing in our children. We need to maintain that sparkle of the thousand diamonds in their eyes, we need to preserve the madness of the hatter in their imagination, the courage to reach out for stars and beyond and to preserve their innocent souls who are gritty enough to make an all-out effort for anything that the heart desires. So let these pure beings roam around in their paracosm and maybe one day they can subdue the world with their glitter and sunshine.