Disappointment starts early



I think babies cry a lot because they haven't yet come to terms with their predicament, locked in physical bodies subject to the unwieldy laws of nature.

Gravity is probably the first big disappointment. What a drag it must be that those toys won't just hover around where you left them in space, but instead keep tumbling down out of reach. Always out of reach. Gravity also means that you need to exert great effort just to get a good visual perspective on anything. Let your guard down for a moment, and down you go all the way to the floor.

Next there is inertia, and the somber realization that one can only move in space by painstakingly translating the body through a circuitous path all the way from origin to destination. Every infinitesimal part of the movement is resisted by the mass of one's body, which in our planet's atmosphere is in a tireless battle against motion, always and forever relentlessly striving to be at rest.

Yes, having to crawl must be such a chore for a little baby. Slithering against unwilling carpet and dragging around a body mass that never seems to want to come along. Sorry kid, no instantaneous translation in this universe, no 'Beam me up, Scotty', at least not yet.

But I think the ultimate disappointment from a toddler's perspective might be the cruel fact that one can be only himself. Locked forever behind one pair of eyes inside one human body. Limited to one particular point of view - one narrow perspective. It is something we've stopped to think about once we're older, perhaps like a long time prisoner might not find his cell confining anymore.

But it is confining. It is the ultimate confinement to only be able to live one life. To only see the green of grass from one side. To only have one history, one opinion, one culture.

To only be one person...


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