AN ODE TO THE INNER CHILD: IN YOU AND ME

We all have heard the line: Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Well, if there is anything my heart has grown fonder for in the past few months it is my inner child. Inner child as a concept is the least overrated one. Sometimes we lose sight of happiness and at times happiness evades us too. During times like these, one must go within. As Marcus Aurelius, our very beloved centuries-old uncle said, 'look within, for within is the fountain of all love', we all must look within. 

Time and again growing up has felt like the systemized death of the inner child. The trade of innocence hurts the person who understands how precious it is to survive. The vile gossips, self-aggrandizement, pomp, superficial living, etc. sounds like a bunch of ghostly spirits trying to devour the youth and wilderness.   

As a child, we love to love everything, who we are, what we do and whom we are friends with. Our jokes are silly, our laughter is genuine and our words are almost always true. The more we grow up the more we tend to become dull and boring. Greys and blues replace reds and yellows. Love becomes a difficult word and life becomes wrangled in unnecessary lies, betrayals and complications. As Sudha Murthy writes in her collection of short stories, Wise and Otherwise, "life is simple in villages where people speak what they feel and do not mince with words."

Leonardo da Vinci rightly said: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. It is this simplicity that I seek to guard, nurture and cherish. The simplicity of this ephemeral being, of all kinds of relationships, friendships, truth and beauty. The simplicity of me and you. The simplicity of one's dreams and visions led by truth and humility and not by jealousy and fear. 

A child is curious and full of life. To be a child at heart is to be free, young and fearless. It is to allow the winds to kiss your hair and let love flow into one's life. It is to stay humble while conquering the great heights. It is to laugh, love and live. It is to enjoy 'what is' and be unfettered by 'what is not'. It is to exist truly, wholly and authentically. A child is not proud or boastful, a child just is. A child is true to herself and others. She knows nothing, well even Socrates knew nothing (lame inside joke alert, haha!). A child is the best philosopher. With one's beaming eyes she sees the world and the world sparkles because she smiles. A child is the best living concoction of the spirits of a realist and a dreamer. Be it speaking the truth about how much she enjoyed a party or didn't or wondering about conquering the planet Mars before Elon Musk, everything is a cakewalk for her. 

Here's to raising a toast to the inner child who knows how to create a balance without trying too hard, who knows how to love life and people without pondering over what love is, who lives without fear and who is centred yet is a speck of dust like everyone else. 

As that funky Instagram caption says: "The plan is to die young as late as possible!", I plan to keep this child alive and kicking. 

To this inner child, I say, I am grateful, please stay. 

Lovingly yours,

P.

Image source: Pinterest