penny for your thoughts
was watching 'are you smarter than a 5th grader' last night. and it got me thinking, as we grow older, do we grow dumber or smarter? one of the questions posted as first grade animal science was 'are all birds mammels. true or false?'the contestant answered 'true', that's probably what we're thinking right? but in the end, the answer was 'false' and he had to rely on his classmate to save him. so that brings me back to my thought on us being smarter or dumber. it's ironic that as we grow older, we are better educated, more exposed to knowledge yet, we find ourselves at a loss when such simple questions are posted to us. could it be that we are so caught up in complexity that we no longer indulge in the beauty of simplicity? yet if we do that, and not bother ourselves with progress, living our lives with 'ignorance is bliss', we are branded as ignorant and dumb by society. dumb for not knowing what is happening in our world today.
why is it that adults find mr bean stupid yet children think he's the funniest man alive? why do adults break away from cartoons saying it's more suited for children? or in chinese, it's frequent to hear adults telling children 'you children don't know anything'. I remembered once, my mum told me, during their board meeting, the vp asked 'given a huge pillar of wood and a gateway like those found in china, the pillar is too tall to fit through upright, how then do we bring it through?' the executives went into deep discussion, and came up with an answer 'cut the pillar into two', yet ask a child, and they would simply tell you 'why can't you carry it horizontally?'
sometimes, freqent exposure to things which involves a higher order of thinking, leaves us ignorant to the simplicity of it. which annoys me to find that sometimes adults think they are brilliant and always right. you know how as kids, we used to have alot of dreams, to be a fireman, policeman, lawyer, doctor, pilot, etc. dreams erupt from imagination and inspiration when we watch our favourite tv drama serials. as kids, we believed in ghosts/ monsters under our beds; things that we couldn't see in front of our eyes. yet, as we grow older, when we ask one another what our ambition is, we find ourselves saying 'I don't know' the most. we try not to believe in the unknown, be it the existence of a god, angel, ghosts, or sometimes our childhood ambition to be the president someday. why? because we are exposed to reality, snatching away and telling us that we can't get what we want unless we pay the price for it. but that's beside the point.
I was so irritated the whole day or rather the whole year. as if going to school and hearing 'aim for As' every single day, you are reminded again at home. in our environment, we constantly reminded that we cannot fail, that only being the elites, can we then have a livelihood. the mid year exams are coming soon, and my mother has been asking me non-stop if I have been studying. recently, she was on vacation and I didn't do much studying aside from finishing my math revision package. and she questioned me on my progress, and was unconvinced when I told her I studied while she was away. you see, we no longer believe in things unless we see it happening before our eyes. faith starts diminishing in our lives and who have we to blame but ourselves; then again, what are we best at? none other than shifting the blame to others.
exams pisses me off. wait, studies pisses me off. we no longer are able to do the things we love unless we all abide by the rules.
Charmaine at 9:49 PM