K is for . . . Knowing

Image courtesy: Raj Manchekar

Sweeties,
It's time to fly high with K for kite. It is amazing how a single sheet of paper, quadrilateral in shape, fixed upon a thin wooden frame and tied down with a really, long string coated with powdered glass, has the potential to fly so high. You would think that the kite's appearance would go against it, that it would be too thin, too weak to hold its own against heavy winds, not to mention other spiteful kite owners who hope to cut it off in mid-flight.

But it is precisely the fact that its moorings are held firmly in the hands of the flyer, that it can afford to go out there without a care in the world.

The K that your mamma would like to bring to your notice is quite similar. It is K for Knowing, or more appropriately, the seeking to know.

Because you are near the starting point of the learning race at school, I remind you to keep learning and absorbing all they teach you at school. But don't let your learning be limited to words ending in -ology. There are many things worth knowing that cannot be taught. 

Know more about a new hobby, a new interest. Know about what is happening around you, good as well as ill, know more about how you can contribute to make more good and less ill happen.

Keep seeking to know more, for it is only when you follow your thirst for knowing that you realise how much there is to know and how little is all your learning and knowledge. That feeling of coming up short is the beginning of wisdom. 

Nurture it. Cherish it. It will keep you grounded. Like the kite which, even as it soars high up in the sky, is tied down in safe hands.

There is much to be known and learned on earth. As long as you keep learning, those synapses in your brain will keep buzzing to life. The brain is a muscle that atrophies if left unused, and grows remarkably if stimulated.

I'm not too enamoured with knowledge. So long as we seek to know, there seems to be a thirst for more, a hunger to learn. 

Knowledge has connotations of a thirst shelved, too full of itself to think it needs to be filled. Unlike knowing, which is always in the present tense, always willing to replenish itself,  Knowledge seems to be sitting on the ledge, unwilling to make the leap, and consequently unable to discover anything new on its way down.

My wish for you is that you may seek to know something good every day of your lives. Ask new questions and seek newer answers. Pay attention always, and be alert for something new that you can know. Because in the end, what  you know is one thing no one can take away from you. 

Keep flying high, my babies. Hasta la vista.