I wish to see the world through the eyes of a child...

Last night while I was tossing and turning trying to fall back asleep, I thought how badly I wish I could somehow regress, just enough to a time where I could see the world as a child does, through their eyes, with the innocence, excitement and the anticipation of trying something new, meeting someone for the first time and not judging them by the color of their skin, caste or religion and just enjoy their company for who they are without any outside influence. It is a shame that as we mature, we loose that ability to do things for just the shear pleasure of trying something new without hesitation or fear or worry about what others might think of that decision to do it in the first place.

When we are born we are like clean slates. We have no fear of the unknown, don't have the capacity to hate, and we trust those around us to care and nurture us. For the first few weeks of life, we are dependent on others for all our needs and each week, as we develop, we look around us in pure delight as to what we can start to do ourselves. We begin to focus and smile and as the weeks go by, we discover ourselves and what our hands and feet look like and eventually how they work. We eventually begin to move from simply rolling from our backs to our stomachs to actually crawling and then comes the time we take our first step. We are blessed doing all these things with the help of those who love us and share in our excitement to learn all these new things.

I ones felt pure delight to watch a small girl being approached by another kid almost her age. This kid was a stranger to her but she did not think about the color of that child's skin or what language that child speaks, its religion or caste or even if the that child was a boy or a girl. She looks at that child as a potential playmate, someone to have fun with on the jungle gym. I think about how innocent her gesture is and that she will evenually at no fault of her own, learn about prejudice, and fear of the unknown. Then I was in pain thinking that one day through the media and other outside influences, she will learn about the cruelty of ethnic jokes, how sometimes religion can even in an innocent way, make others less tolerant of your beliefs and how people have a way of judging you by a name or the way you may look. I hope and pray that even though she will be subjected to that, she will never loose her ability to think as an individual and to stand up for what she knows is the right thing to do.