It's all in the mind.

I remember the time I lived at Caunter Hall, Penang. Today, it has been renamed Jalan P. Ramli after a well-known Malay actor. When I was there, it was just a big village surrounded by banana plantations, coconut plantations and pineapple plantations. Once a year, there would be a flood.

While the adults and some children dread the floods, I enjoyed them. It was the only time of the year when I could get my clothes wet without being scolded. At the slightest excuse, I would run through the coconut plantation in the rain to the sundry shop on its other side to help purchase things my mother needed. The best times were when a ‘plop’ signaled a race to the spot to return with an old coconut for the family. And a run was always welcome after my weak legs had recovered from the trauma they underwent at the legs of the temple medium.(True story in an earlier posting.)

When the floods descended upon the village, it was an opportunity to wade around the village, my feet and toes feeling the slippery mud and soil, looking for ducklings swept down the river towards us. Each flood rewarded us with ducklings from another village.The ducklings were God-sent.

Besides, I had the fun of folding paper boats which I put into the flood waters to glide away. I could put my legs in the cool water as it swirl around the bed and the surrounding furniture through the house. I could drop myself into the water and paddle around without any reprimand from my parents. How wonderful life could be! God sent flood waters to children like me.

After the floods, adults would grumble and complain of the many cleaning jobs they had to perform to put the house back in order. Stains left by the muddy flood water was everywhere. Everything was a mess, according to the adults. After each flood, the adults would think of ways to prevent water from the next flood entering their houses.

As it can be seen, what was joy and pleasure to me was tediousness and a chore to the adults. They talked about messiness while I delighted in the fun. Our minds were obviously on different wavelengths. We saw things differently.

With this, parents could perhaps understand their children better. Understand that what is enjoyable to us may not necessary be enjoyable for them. However, parents ought to know how much happiness could be found such gifts of nature. And when children could not help but play in the muddy water, it was not naughtiness but a natural joy, children's innate enthusiasm for happiness!

Unfortunately, as we grow to be adults, society teaches us artificial behaviours which hamper the expression of our innate enthusiasm for happiness. If we were to enjoy the rain in the streets of our concrete jungle, society may term us mad. So, we have to restrain ourselves. As for me, so often have I allowed myself the freedom and pleasure of a walk in the rain up a hill. I still value the joy I derive from such occassions.

This difference in attitude towards things is not merely between parents and their children. It is also between one child and another for no two children are alike in every way. Just as it is never the same between two adults. We are all individuals, different in as many ways as we are similar.

When we understand this, we are able to accept others and their idiosyncratic ways as well as their many differing views and thoughts.