The adult world, from the point of view of a child.

Tiarnan is 7. Though pretty young by most standards, he has clear views on many things. April 2^nd was a case in point.

Tiarnan sidled up to me as I sat at my computer desk.

“Why do some countries like to fight?”, he began, clearly grappling with the sheer puzzle of it.

“Because they think they can get something by fighting.”, I answered, quite simply, while I appraised his reaction.

Tiarnan laughed, without the hint of a delay:  “They will never get anything by fighting.”

“The Americans fought in the Middle East, because they wanted oil.”, I countered, more to expand the conversation, than to contradict his view.

“Why do they want oil?” Tiarnan, began. “They have legs. They can just walk to places.”

There was something in him that was aghast at the whole idea. He seemed to think the Americans were being very silly, indeed.

I thought his understanding was wonderfully apt, so I let the matter stand unanswered.

What strikes me as funny about this is that, from the point of view of a child, the adult world can seem very silly. The things adults do just don’t seem to be rational, when approached with the clarity a bright child is able to bring to the situation. They have a very uncluttered view of the world and see, in some ways, the core that adults learn to overlook. In a way, it is silly that we have built our world to be dependent on artificial transport systems, when we have a natural one at our disposal. It is silly that we design our cities such that long distance driving is required to get everything we need to live, instead of living locally, with all our needs in easy reach – on foot. Modern adults have, in some ways, designed a very silly world in which to live – and a young child can see that. I must say, though, that it is refreshing to hear it said.

Of course, once the world’s oil runs out – which will probably happen without a viable replacement to hand, then the silliness of the world we have built will become clear, not only to our children, but to all. Then, perhaps, we will, indeed, use our legs, to do what they were meant to do: put the world within our reach. It is going to be a sobering shock for most people – yet that is the world that is promised to come, on the basis of one unavoidable fact: our oil reserves are finite and running out fast.

Yet, I can’t help but note that the end of oil is likely to result in behaviour which would meet with Tiarnan’s disapproval: resource wars fought over the remaining crumbs of oil. My little son wouldn’t be impressed.

It is funny to note that if the world were designed by children, it would be both simpler and somehow, potentially, nicer – at least if designed by Tiarnan. His world is a world without war, lived locally at a gentle pace. It is not such a bad place to consider.

Thank you Tiarnan, for showing me your understanding of how the world should be.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Wondering at the adult world.

Tiarnan wonders at the ways of adults. To him, they, at times, seem arbitrary and somewhat bizarre – for they seem to have no reason to them. The answer, of course, is that perhaps they don’t.

A week or two ago, when Tiarnan was still four, he came to his mummy, with a puzzled little face.

“Why,” he began, in his very small but proper voice, “do people shake their heads, like this,” he shook his head horizontally, from side to side, “to say no, and like this,” he nodded his head up and down, “to say yes?”

His mother, who was usually very good at such things, had no answer for him. She realized, in the moment of asking, that he had a point: these gestures seemed to be arbitrary, with no real reason for their being. No doubt, there was a historical tale as to why they were the way they were…but she didn’t know it.

Tiarnan didn’t let her dwell long, before making a further enquiry.

“Will people die by breaking their necks, if they keep on saying no?”

He demonstrated, by moving his head from side to side.

She gave him a smile and a hug, suppressing her laughter, for the sake of his serious demeanour.

It was clear what Tiarnan meant. He realized that, mechanically speaking, the human neck had rotational limits from left to right – and that pushing those limits would result in a broken neck. So, again, he had a point, even if a rather bizarre one. It is a wonder what fears fill his four year old head, that he should imagine fatalities in simply saying no. Yet, his fears derive from a consideration of the ways of the adult world and his attempt to understand them. So, I suppose that, ultimately, the adult world is to blame for his little worries. Together, we have created an arbitrary set of rules and behaviours that new little children have to strive to understand. Tiarnan, in his clear sighted way, has made me see the accidental nature of our behavioural customs. The fact that he had to question the reason behind these customary gestures is enough to make it understood that there is no obvious reason for them. Thus it is, yet again, that the child teaches the adults, how to see the world. My children often do that, for they see truly what is and not what they have come to understand things to be. Too often, I think, in our world, the views of children are dismissed as being “uninformed” or “naïve” – yet it is precisely that lack of prior knowledge and newness to experience, that makes it more likely that they will see things as they truly are, and not as they are expected to be or understood to be, by convention.

Perhaps, it is the littlest “men” who are the wisest, after all, for they see what is and not what should be.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)