A Child Destined to Learn Hard Lessons

I was thinking about something today. There was this commercial for Ziploc bags on tv where a mother thinks about how her daughter needs a bag of marbles and she imagines that if she uses a subpar bag, the daughter will have a bunch of marbles falling out of her locker. This reminded me of the fact that, at some point, children will all have that experience: the embarrassment of having a bunch of marbles fall all over the floor in front of everyone in the locker room. Okay, so maybe not every child will have that exact experience; but they will have some sort of other embarrassment or disappointment. There will be a moment when every child will encounter a situation that isn't fair, and eventually that child's mommy will have to explain to that child that there is nothing she can do to fix the unfairness. The world isn't fair. In fact, it's rather brutal. Life is violent and unpredictable, the good guy doesn't always win in the end, actually the bad guy wins a lot, not everyone gets what they deserve, sometimes giving your all isn't enough, most times shit will happen, friends are unreliable, family can be taken away at any moment, and, ultimately, most individuals are rather insignificant. A child will spend the next years on the road to adulthood learning and re-learning this lesson: life is not fair. Etc. etc. My heart always breaks when I hear a child genuinely cry, "It's not fair!"

I think about this sometimes, especially when I look at little kids. I think about this a lot when I spend time with my little cousin, N. He's a sweetheart, but sometimes I feel like he's too innocent for his own good. He believes that the world is fair and he trusts that the adults around him can make things right. That's exactly how I was when I was a kid, and learning how wrong my worldview was turned out to be very devastating. And when I think about N having to go through the same thing a few years down the line, it saddens me. I remember one incident, for example, when a younger boy was playing with N and that boy was making a lot of trouble for him. He played very roughly and eventually hit N  with a carrot right in his temple. A lot of the adults around didn't realize that N was actually hit rather badly (I saw it) and they ended up saying it was okay and that he, since he was older, had to understand that the little boy didn't know what he was doing. That's when I saw N's face curl up and his tears started flowing long before he could get any words out. He was so baffled by the situation that all he could do was cry. When others tried to tell him he was overreacting, he kept yelling that it wasn't fair. And, I could relate. This other little boy had wronged him and, because the boy was younger, N had to let it go. This didn't make sense to N because he knew that if he hurt another kid, he would be punished. What bothered him most, though, was that none of the adults were doing anything to make the situation fair. But, as I said, life isn't fair--and N will be learning that lesson again and again.
You know, there was a time when S told me that I was cutting cucumbers too thickly and N got very protective of me. He told S that he should be thankful that I was cooking for them and that if he doesn't appreciate me as a wife, he would marry me when he grows up and he would be happy with everything I do. N was only like 6 years old at the time, and yet he was trying to make the world fair for me. How can that not tug on my heartstrings??
Ok, one more story and I'll get back on track--a while ago, N's grandmother died. N, S, and I were at N and my grandparents' house and I woke up and passed through N's room and he was sleeping. For some reason I got a bad feeling when I saw him and I decided to sit on the bed with him and I eventually dozed off. I woke up to the sound of the phone ringing and I instinctively knew that it was news of his grandmother. I cried, right there next to him as he was sleeping. It was so unfair. This poor little boy's grandmother had just died and he had no idea. I didn't know how he would take it. A few weeks later, his parents came and they told him. I expected tears and tantrums. But no, he just laid in bed and stared intently at the ceiling all day. He literally did not move for hours as though he was still processing the information. When he saw me pass by, he told me that his grandmother had died. He did it so calmly that I had to wonder if this was a kid or some old man in a little person's body. I think about those moments a lot.

Anyway, after all those tangents...I think you get what I'm trying to say.  I have a sensitive spot for child suffering; I especially hate to see children witness the unfairness of the world. This makes me think about the children in my future. Sometimes I wonder, how can I ever be a mother when I know how horrible the world can be? When my child looks at me for answers through teary eyes, will I have the heart to lie to the kid and say that everything will be ok? How can I know if everything will be ok? Especially when, most often, it isn't ok. How will I ever be able to explain, to an innocent child who completely and wholeheartedly trusts in every word I say, that the world is far from perfect and it's full of people who can be cruel and unjust? Sometimes I wonder if it's even fair to have children when I know how hard life can be. I don't know. I can't imagine how painful that part of motherhood is when you have to tell your child that life is not as perfect and fair as they imagined. I really wish that everyone in the world would just get together and create a better world for our children to inherit.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Someone I know once said something along the lines of "childhood is like the paradise we are all destined to lose in one way or another." I thought it was cheesy then, but maybe I was still in my later stages of childhood at the time- who knows? Come to think of it though, applying the Genesis allegory to childhood proves rather insightful. There are a lot of similarities between Eden and childhood. Most striking, of course, is that knowledge inevitably banishes us from Eden almost literally.

It used to annoy me when people talked about how children are innocent, have no care in the world, and how everything was so much easier and happier as a child (of course, I've realized that not all can relate to this image of childhood unfortunately). But I've come to see that this is largely very true. When I look at pictures of children I know, the way they smile is much different than the way that adults smile. When children are happy, their entire bodies radiate a complete happiness whereas when adults are happy, their smiles seem more like a momentary distraction from the darker realities of life.

When I think about my own experience of life, I feel like I am generally happy and grateful for everything that I have--but at the same time, there is this constant awareness of the general sadness and cruelty in the world that I cannot get out of my mind. Even when my life is at its high points (and I have literally no reason to feel anything but happiness), I am still reminded of the fact that other people are suffering and that life is hard for everyone. And life is hard. It is so much more brutal than I had imagined it as a child (and I say this with the recognition that I have been much luckier than most). From the moment we are born, we are all destined to endless toiling with loss, tragedy, disappointments, inadequacies, etc. Sure, much of it has to do with the fact that humans suffer from chronic dissatisfaction- but at the same time, that dissatisfaction isn't always unwarranted.

A lot of shit happens throughout the course of one's life. And while many philosophies and religions try to explain these things by referring to a greater plan or purpose, there are still many things that I don't think can be explained. Like why are some innocent children born into misery? Why do some parents lose their child much before their time? Why do some people lose their jobs when they're barely making ends meet? Why are some people disfigured or diseased in the very prime of their life? And why do so few people ever realize the full extent of their potential? Etc. etc. There are many things like this that I don't understand. You see, I understand suffering…but I don't understand why there is so much pointless suffering.

I borrowed the title for my blog post from the title of a book I've been meaning to read by Milan Kundera. With limited knowledge of the book's content, I'm still very fascinated by the title since I feel that it perfectly describes the nuances of adult life. Most times, it does feel that there is an unbearable lightness to just being. It's as if we all float through this thick atmosphere of sadness against which we are completely powerless. All we can do is find some funny joke, moment of happiness, or memory of better times in order to distract us from our painful suspension within this atmosphere that we didn't even ask to get thrown into in the first place. I truly cannot understand why there is so much suffering and sadness in the world. Sometimes I think it has to do with money, or power, or greed - but it's much more complicated than that and it most often seems rather random and unexplainable.

I may sound like I'm trying to get at some sort of answer or truth about life -- but the truth is that people have been trying to understand suffering for thousands of years and I'm definitely not about to come up with some sort of prophetic understanding. At most, all I can do is contribute my own questions and musing to this never-ending quest to understand life and its hardships.

All that I really know is that the beauty of childhood (for those who are lucky enough to retain their innocence long enough) is the fact that children are oblivious to the crude suffering and sadness that is a part of life. It is the fact that when an adult tells a child that "everything will be ok," that child can still whole-heartedly believe that everything will be ok. Children have the capacity to see beauty untainted by the harsher realities of life. That is why I think it is very accurate to compare childhood to paradise--in many ways, it is a paradise. And yet, the knowledge of reality that inevitably comes with maturity is what marks the end of childhood. From then on, I suppose that, as one ages, one only becomes ever more aware of how far from paradise real life truly is. I wonder if part of the desire to have children (apart from the biological desire) has to do with adults longing to see the world through a child's eyes? Maybe having children provides satisfaction, not just for perpetuating one's line etc, but also because it allows the parents to revisit, to some extent, their lost paradise through the eyes of their children?