“Hello!”
“Is this your toy?”
“No.”
“Why do you have it if it’s not a toy?”
“It can hear your voice?”
“Oh, can you not hear me without it?”
“I can but I want others to hear it later, too.”
“Why are they not here if they want to hear me?”
“They are somewhere else now. But I can capture your voice for them.”
“Oh, so you capture my voice in this silver net? Is it a voice cage? And when can I have my voice back?”
“Oh no. It’s not a cage. It’s the cover of the microphone. Your voice, you can keep it and the others can have it, too.”
“Wow! I wish I could have a microphone for the toy store. So I could have all the toys and they could still keep them in the store.”
“Hahaha. I can imagine that would be nice.”
“Do you have to keep your microphone on a leash so it will not go away, the voice, I mean?”
“Oh no, it’s a cable. It brings your voice to this box where it is kept.”
“I could speak directly to this box if you like. Can I touch it?”
“Sure.”
“Wow! It’s heavy. Are there many voices inside already? Is a voice heavy?”
“Well, there are no voices yet inside but many electronic pieces and metal parts so that makes it heavy. But can we start please?”
“Haven’t we started yet?”
“Well, we have but I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Is it a game? I like playing games”
“Yes, we can do it as a game. First questions…”
“Look! Look over there! There is a butterfly! So beautiful.”
“Right. I can see it. Really nice. So the questions is…”
“Do you think that if a butterfly can fly a butter bread can bread?”
“Sorry!? Can a butter bread bread?! But bread is not a verb, my dear.”
“Oh, so it can’t bread. What a pity.”
“Well, maybe if the wind is blowing it could fly…”
“What does the wind do when it doesn’t blow? Can a wind blow backwards?”
“Huh, I am not sure.”
“Look! Look through the window. There is a rainbow over there!”
“Yes, very colourful.”
“Who paints the rainbow? And who erases it.“
“Oh, this is just what we see. The light waves break and we see different colours…”
“You mean, the rainbow doesn’t exist?!?”
“Well, it does in our eyes.”
“That’s why we have eyes for different colours?”
…
As you can imagine, the interview went on and on without me being able to ask a single question about the HERE & NOW. Yet, I have experienced it first-hand. So the answers were given by this child like we get the answers from all the children all the time. We just miss them most of the time because we are not used to answers without our questions.
We only see what we look for. We only hear what we listen to. We only feel what we touch. We only are who we became in the past or who we want to become in the future. For the adults NOW is often about analysing the past or planning the future. And HERE is often a place with the less greener grass, less sun or less whatever compared to the places we actually want to be.
Whereas children can stretch the HERE & NOW so it is like never ending, we tend to optimize it to the maximum of efficiency, purpose, agenda, ticking off things, etc. we basically eliminate it completely from our life.
My key takeaways:
1. IF WE PAY ATTENTION TO HERE & NOW, THE MOMENT BECOMES ETERNITY.
2. MAYBE HERE IS NOT THREE DIMENSIONAL AND NOW IS NOT LINEAR. MAYBE THEY BOTH HAVE ENDLESS DIMENSIONS LIKE A MOMENT OF FALLING IN LOVE DOES.
3. A GOOD LIFE IS NOT AN INTERVIEW WHERE WE ASK QUESTIONS AND GET THE RIGHT ANSWERS. IT’S A DIALOGUE OF ANSWERS.
For the child in you:
How to lead now…
It’s a dialogue of answers only when the internal response is allowed to emerge naturally, like a child does, can one hope to attain a new perspective. Attempting to force or control externally only leads to chaos. Just as a new life emerges from an egg only when it opens from within, because if its opening is forced from the outside, a mess is made.