99 days… and counting…
“…sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast…”
(The White Queen, Alice Through the Looking Glass)
Children don’t believe in something because it makes sense. They don’t believe in something because they have done a scientific analysis of the facts and deduced that it is likely to be true. They believe in something because they believe in it. They believe in something because they want to believe in it… because no one has given them a good enough reason why it isn’t true. Which seems fair enough to me. Is there really any difference between believing in God and believing in fairies? Or Father Christmas? Or magic?
Children have a pretty good idea about faith. Priests and vicars and rabbis and so on spend their whole lives trying to explain to grown-ups what it means to have it and what to do if you lose it… but why not just ask a child?
Scientific implausibility is no barrier to a child’s view on the world. Even if there is the remotest chance that something is true… then why not believe it is true? Who’s to tell you that you are definitely, incontrovertibly wrong?
With a child on the way, maybe I should start thinking more like one…
So with that in mind…
What can I believe today?
7 comments
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March 19, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Brenda
I once was priviledged to meet a great but humble scientist from India who has received a number awards for his work in bringing about the green revolution in India. The lesson I took away from his life story is the philosophy his father passed down to his as a young lad: nothing is impossible. Literally.
Can a dad bestow a better gift? I can think of several current ‘truths’ that may just fade to falsehood some day:
1. Human beings can’t be here one minute and in China the next. True today, but they might tomorrow.
2. God cannot be seen by mortals. At least in our current modes of thinking. But one day we might look back and discover we didn’t know what we were looking for.
I think if more adults could, like children, believe a few impossiblities each day, think of the advances that might be made!
March 19, 2008 at 10:06 pm
pepsoid
Absolutely, Brenda! Three “impossibilities” come to mind which quantum physics seems to have demonstrated or be on the way to demonstrating are true…
A person (particle, thing, etc…
*can* be in two places at once.
Time travel (backwards as well as forwards) is possible.
Faster-than-light travel is possible.
What else? And beyond the realms of present day “conventional” science, what may be deemed to be impossible which is, in fact, merely “unlikely”? The existence of fairies? The existence of a supreme, omnipotent being, which may or may not be called “God”?
What we “know” is merely the tip of an infinite iceberg…
March 21, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Free to think, free to believe...
Today’s ‘impossibilities’ are tomorrow’s challenges.
I’m not sure a father can provide a better gift than Brenda’s scientist but he would probably argue that you have to deal with what you can achieve - which I think is also a kindness in not raising somebody to believe they are a failure if they cannot achieve their ‘dreams’ - here I’m thinking about all those things I wanted to do as a child…
Some were just downright implausible but a light touch here may be the best thing…
March 21, 2008 at 5:38 pm
pepsoid
Agree, Free… there is perhaps a little too much focus these days on “believing you can achieve anything”… it seems positive, but is it setting our children up for (perceived) failure?
Reaching for… travelling towards… dreams… while appreciating all the way-stations along the way…
…is perhaps a wiser and more achievable philosophy!
March 22, 2008 at 9:42 am
pepsoid
By the way, did anyone notice my “deliberate mistake” of crediting the White Queen’s quote to Alice in Wonderland rather than Through the Looking Glass? No? Phew!
(edited now)
April 6, 2008 at 8:28 pm
Brenda
One last comment as I’ve been pondering some of the great discussion here … I have to agree that just because you foster the idea that anything is possible, that doesn’t mean that telling your child s/he can achieve anything is the right way to go. Some where along the line we must also know how to take inventory of our strengths and weaknesses. And thinking over my own life, I wish I’d have learned long ago that just because something is worth doing means I’m the right person to do it. (By the way, I have always had trouble keeping Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass straight!)
April 7, 2008 at 9:01 pm
pepsoid
I have just watched a video called “Monster” – being a stand-up performance of Dylan Moran from a few years ago… and I have to say it was the funniest 90 minutes I have experienced in a long while – I was literally aching by the end of it! One of the things he touched on – in his unique, sardonic, irreverent and exceedingly Irish style – was the dangers of “releasing one’s potential”… Obviously his words were spoken for comedic effect, but beneath the humour was a semi-serious point: what if one finds one doesn’t have as much “potential” as one would hope? What kind of disappointment is one setting oneself up for? The wider context of Moran’s routine is a gentle lambasting of the self-help industry, which has boomed almost to an obscene degree of late – and which encourages and promotes the idea that we can all, if we put our minds to it, achieve wonderful, world-changing things… whereas the likely truth is that most of us will lead distinctly average lives, achieving nothing especially universe-altering, but not experiencing anything too horrific either. Is it healthy or useful to promote the idea that anyone and everyone can be Masters of our Destiny and be ecstatically happy to boot?
I think, like most things in life, it’s all about balance… not expecting too much, but not expecting too little… seeking happiness, enjoying it when you get it, but also appreciating and accepting the inevitability of pain and disappointment… we can’t all be gods or geniuses, but if we can accept that – if we can embrace, even love, our smallness, our normality, our unexceptionality – I think perhaps we can all be a little happier than we might otherwise be… if we reach for the stars, even if we never get there – or even close! – with the right mindset, we can appreciate and enjoy every planet, asteroid and gas cloud the universe throws in our path…
I’m getting the feeling parenthood is going to be like traversing an extremely narrow, wobbly tightrope, with winds and words of “helpful” advice buffeting me from every direction!