My mother always gets surprised to see new gadgets. I used to tell her that these are common these days, even kids handle these gadgets easily. Are we wondering at advanced technologies or acting like we knew they were already coming?
When I used to wish my father “Happy Birthday,” he innocently replied “Happy Birthday” to me, as if it were “Happy Diwali” or “Happy New Year.”
What is innocence? Innocence is a newborn baby, newly bloomed flowers, untouched coconut water. From Mother Nature, even clay is innocent. There is a thin line between innocence and ignorance. We have insecurities about showing our unknowingness to the world.
Consider yourself as a blank white paper when you were born. We ought to grow up into something in life. We write or scribble onto it with our experiences. The more we experience, the more the page fills. In the process of filling the paper, we end up losing the blank white paper. Does that mean your innocence is lost?
With the use of the scribbled paper, if you ever become a person to trust nobody, to anticipate issues proactively, to expect the unfortunate, and think that it is intelligence, then you are ignorant. These habits form opinions, and opinions build your thoughts, and those thoughts bring all of the above-mentioned ignorance.
Yes, the scribbled paper is your experience. But that doesn’t erase your innocence. It is about how the writing changes you internally. Innocence is a light that brightens over the scribblings. To trust people again after a life tragedy, to be kind even if life is unkind, to be hopeful even if you do not see light in the dark is more than intelligence. You make human life humane.
Two people can have exactly the same life experiences, and one becomes cynical, bitter, and defensive in nature. The other still loves, still trusts, still stays kind. Innocence is not about having no experiences written on you. It is about not letting those experiences turn you bitter.
But here comes a question, when it comes to survival, how do you hold your innocence? For example, a tiger is coming to an innocent deer to attack, and what should the deer do now for its survival?
The deer runs from the tiger, that is survival. It remembers the danger, that is intelligence. It still returns to the water and drinks water calmly the next day, that is innocence. But if the deer starts thinking everyone as tiger, if it begins to live in fear, if everything becomes a threat forever, if it has to live with a defensive mechanism, then it is ignorance.
When it comes to survival, innocence is not about staying unprotected. It is about not letting survival turn into permanent bitterness.
I could relate this thought to the book The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, which I have read. It says, “Your destiny is the level where you will play your tune. You might not change your instrument, but how well to play is entirely in your hands.”
Innocence is not something we lose over the time and through experiences. It is something we choose to protect, even after everything we learn. Holding on to your innocence is also a path to true happiness.