Forever Children

How sure can one be about one's beliefs? There are times in our lives when we think that we already have all the answers in life. We feel so sure that we have found the right path.

Life is like climbing a mountain. We struggle to reach a peak, we look down and think the view is very good. And then we shout to everyone around us and say: " Hey, the best view is here, come and join me! This is the right path and spot. Don't waste your time elsewhere!".

Little do we know that there are even higher peaks with much better views. And there are people sitting quietly there enjoying the view before proceeding to higher peaks.

Teenagers on reaching puberty often feel very sure that what the adults want them to do is wrong. They have this spirit and passion to pursue what their heart tells them to. Because it feels so right inside.

When they reach their twenties, they begin to see how childish and immature their youthful beliefs were. They were idealistic. They were unaware of some of the difficulties that lie ahead. But it felt so right then, how could it be wrong?

Right now, I feel that my opinion about certain things are right. In my moments of arrogance I might even call someone else who do not share my views, stupid. Years from now, I might find my own views now laughable.

It is good to have strong beliefs but we must never dismiss the possibility that we could be wrong. The Communists thought that their system was the right one. On paper, some political or economical theories might even look very elegant and appealing to the intellect. Sometimes intellectual appeal is the greatest trap.

Even scientific theories, which can be proven empirically, can collapse overnight. Newtonian mechanics stood for centuries as irrefutable truths until Einstein showed that they are just approximations at speeds very much lower than the speed of light.

The great Sir Isaac Newton himself was humble about his own achievements. He wrote (not exactly in the following words--I'm quoting from memory--but close):

"I do not know how I may appear to the world. But to myself, I've been like a small child playing on a seashore, diverting my attention every now and then to a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the Ocean of Truth lies undiscovered before me"

He had the wisdom and foresight to see his achievements in relation to what was still unknown as the fiddlings of a child. We will continue to grow and learn and find our old beliefs childish. History is one big learning curve which we are still attempting to climb. We will never come to Childhood's End. We should realise that in reality, we are all forever children.