In search of Truth!

Right now, ‘The ultimate truth’, to many of us, seems quite far off. So, there is no point in trying to stretch our hands to reach out towards that straight away. May be we can try out to look at the simple impediments that we can readily see, and then try to improve upon it. If nothing else, I am sure the immediate benefits are tangibly worthy enough!

When we look at a child who has just learnt to talk, we find the use of ‘pronoun’ like ‘I’, ‘me’, etc coming up a bit late. This is because the concept formation tries to catch up a bit late. And when we ask a child questions like “Why do you like sweets?”, there will be only a blank look!

As adults, we communicate a lot amongst ourselves, at home, office, on the street, etc. There is a unique difference between the ‘chat’ content of adults and that of children.
This particular unique aspect mostly goes un-noticed! Children notice it, but being unable to understand it, it remains a bit latent within their innocent minds, and by the time they grow into adulthood they too get inextricably enmeshed in this game! This unique aspect is that we adults try to justify everything that we do! We ‘assume’ that we are simply trying to ‘explain’ to avoid that ‘misunderstanding’ about us in others, by explaining our ‘sequence of logic’ which led us to do something (either commission or omission of actions). There are a few people who do not insist upon offering too much of explanations of this kind. Over a period of time, these ‘explanations’ become almost like a nuisance to others. But they simply and quietly put up with it (perhaps, because they know that even they are not entirely free from it!).

When children chat, please look at their talk-content. They simply express their experience and leave it at that. They do not volunteer any further explanation of ‘because…’ etc. When children hear the parents, they find explanation for everything that parents do (especially for things they failed to do or did it wrong!). This explanation does not stay as innocent explanation. It assumes the look of justification! Initially, children trust the elders and feel that adults seldom go wrong (they are able to ‘explain’ so well every instance!). Now as these children grow, they get a feel of the truth. They understand these ‘explanations’ now too well! It could be justifications most of the times. It is very flexible, and can change to any extent, only to suit the person who uses it! The resentment is held back and kept suppressed till they gain that ‘freedom’ from parents. And then there is no looking back! But, sadly enough, they too get caught up in this game before even they realize it! Children lose trust on their parents to a great extent, when they realize that all along, the parents had been playing that ‘patch-up-game’ justifying every action of theirs, in the name of explanation! Parents wonder when, how and why their children become suddenly ‘disobedient’! And then, there is the consolation …….there is a pattern in the ‘present’ generation! “Oh! We were not like that!”. And soon enough, history repeats! Perhaps, the worst fall out of this ‘tendency to explain everything’ is a drop in ‘open-minded-receptivity’ ability, and as a consequence, also a drop in perceptibility!

It takes lots of effort to get rid of this nasty habit of trying to justify everything that we do. Confessing our errors of judgment is too painful and not adequate even. It may be too late, and perhaps redundant. It is the tendency to ‘explain’ that has to be brought into our ‘conscious acts’ as a first small step. If we try to do it all of a sudden, there could be a sort of vacuum in our communications. Something like everybody becoming needlessly silent when power goes off at night time!

If my theory seems any where near acceptability, there is a lot of scope to do something else about that ultimate truth!Psn(10th October, 2009)