Castaway in the midst of the waves...

Lakshmi Kothaneth -

lakshmiobserver@gmail.com -

The vision of a boat tied to a rope near a bank is the security for the fisherman or the boat rider that his boat will be there for him tomorrow.

We like routines because it is predictable. We know the boat is there until it is untied. Once let loose, as long as the boat is in the skilful hands of the helmsman steering it through the known routes we are at comfort.

Think about being in the deep end without an expert — the scenario changes so does our state of mind. We probably would end up waiting for the possibilities and that is not so much of a comfort zone — waiting for the wind to direct us especially when we are not equipped with a sail.

In which boat would you like to be in?

When we are younger we probably would opt for the second one because we are in the spirit to celebrate adventure. Something makes us so confident to face anything. The older we get we seek for predictability. No drama please — I hear you say.

The reason being that life has already thrown quite a few surprises at us even if we were not looking for adventures. First of all we realise our elders get older. Life does not stay sweet and simple. Not only do the elders get older they change too because we all continue to grow. As we are busy growing physically and intellectually, they have been growing too with life’s experiences and the changes the years bring in.

Some of their experiences we will never know, others we may not relate to and many other experiences they try to share with us fall on deaf ears as most of it we ignore thinking we will learn it our own way. Then there are others who do not have the enrichment of having their parents on their side. They lose parents early or circumstances have them apart. They long to have the moments others have yet children in the company of parents take their blessing for granted.

So while other children take time to learn about the world without their guides, the children who have been deprived of parental care learn life skills on their own that are required for the journey ahead.

At some point they all appear together shoulder to shoulder, in the surface they all might be similar — one among many in the millennium, but scratch the surface and you would find that each one varies emotionally just like the finger prints.

When you are younger you want to meet people and make friends and as you get older the selections process gets longer because one does not want to carry too much of emotional baggage. The lesser expectations the lighter and comfortable a friendship becomes. So we move from clingy adolescent to independent souls. But the elders in the family long to see their little ones, who were full of questions, demanded attention and care.

We are all growing, which could even result in us becoming status symbols. But sometimes it takes a bit of discipline to remind oneself that there is someone out there who nourished us is now cherishing us. It might require us to reshuffle the days and appointments but the elders of the family require our time and care. Most importantly they need to feel the importance of being wanted as this is one drama they would never mind. Of course it is especially comforting if the attention is for positive reasons.

Life can teach us that the mind is the boat that is gently swaying with the wind and the ripples in the water or gentle waves of the sea.

What tie the boat to security is the values and principles in life instilled from the early years of life and strengthened over the years. That is not to say the boats on the loose are minds with no character. It is far from it. They are the minds that are seeking to explore and on many occasions the minds who are out there without a choice. The wind and high waves might wither them away a bit but if they survive, which many do, they have a story to tell.

That story would have the edge because in the process of being cast away in the waves they somehow learnt to steer the boat back to land to tell us the story. The most important aspect is they did not give up — the biggest lesson we need to keep reminding ourselves.