a kid on a slide

A small child was climbing up a slide in a playground today. He was trying hard clambering up the ladder – almost fell down at one time but was caught by his alert father – and finally reached the top. It was a small slide but I suppose it felt gigantic to him.

And what a joy to slide down!

And then do it all over again!

I believe there’s a lot to be learnt from children – they can be our greatest teachers because they’re way ahead of us of having so less to unlearn 😉 So it made me wonder what’s the big deal with the slide – why climb all the way up there, certainly not just for the view. I felt its probably more to do with sliding down – overcoming the initial apprehension – followed by the exhilaration of free-falling! By free falling – one feels relatively free from the law of gravity during those brief moments of sliding down… of course in a much more modest way compared to a NASA research facility – but what does a child care!

There are countless theories on happiness, which of course is nothing to be theorised but experienced. But still as long as I have this hobby of trying to define and nail down things – I’d personally best define happiness as freedom.

The kid reminded me some email I’d received long ago… which I managed to dig up.

“What, then, is happiness? The answer is not complex.
Happiness is simply a state of inner freedom. Freedom
from what? With a bit of self-insight, every
individual can answer that question for himself. It is
freedom from the secret angers and anxieties we tell
no one about. It is freedom from fear of being
unappreciated and ignored, from muddled thinking that
drives us to compulsive actions, and later, to
regrets. It is freedom from painful cravings that
deceive us into thinking that our attainment
of this person or of that circumstance will make
everything right. Happiness is liberty from everything
that makes us unhappy.”

————–

23-Sep-04: Another quote on happiness…

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
~ Mahatma Gandhi