Though I’ve always been the drifting kinds, in the sense that I somehow or the other manage to drift away from the current, but my persistent stoppage in my childhood since some time now is making me ponder over the intent of my sub-conscious intellect.

After giving some thought to it, I have come to the conclusion that it isn’t the childhood, but the person that lived it, that I miss the most. Looking back, I see that I was more heroic, more liberated and hence more empowered back then, than I am today, despite the apparent liberation and independence my position lets me experience now.

A part of me believes that this low regard for my current self stems from what is widely known as “quarter-life crisis”, but the other more cynical part of me has a different, more generalized explanation for my plight.

I often see spirited, vivacious newborns turn into quiet, submissive kids after they join school. Since I was less skeptical and more unconcerned in my own childhood, than I am today, I’m not sure if that’s what changed me. However, having grown into a more complex and thoughtful mortal, I do notice a marked difference in the behavior of little kids once they begin school now.

I used to attribute these changes to the pressures of mundane chores of school life like home assignments, punctual regime et al until a friend pointed out something I had never delved over before.

There has been little, if any, change in our education system since the British left us. And they merely wanted to make low rank service class people out of all the Indians back then. I guess, in some way, the system targeted the very spirit every human is born with. It aimed at making everyone subservient and complying. Looking around and within, I see it did work out fine in that respect.

However a broader perspective suggests this to be a highly vague and short sighted explanation, which may or may not apply to every individual.

I guess, as we grow, depending upon our respective dispositions, we assimilate experiences that cumulatively define and redefine our characters all through the course one calls life.

The effects for similar causes differ throughout the demography, but there’s this one thing that’s often common throughout. It’s rigidity of thought process that comes from what’s popularly known as the “wisdom of age”…

Contemplating further, I wonder what’s all the wisdom for, if it renders one’s spirits crippled and one’s thoughts bonded in the tentacles of inhibitions and unsaid protocols?

I feel a reclamation of all that’s been missed is long due. Guess, we could learn a thing or two from the pioneers of free and natural living. Though they’re called toddlers in my part of the world, I like to call them angels in the confines of my rigid psyche…