From The Eyes of A Naïve

I am now reading a book about Sri Lanka ‘narrated’ by an illiterate boy. Sam’s Story is based on a real boy’s life as told by Elmo Jayawardena – an airline Captain who spends his free time in his home in Sri Lanka with the boy who works for him.

I attended the session about the book in the Festival but only decided to buy the book on the last day. I liked the idea of learning life from the eye of a ‘naïve’ who can see life as is. Simple. No impression. Only reality.

I think people like to ask questions. I don’t mind that. But why pick on me? I don’t like questions. As long as I remember, it had been that way with me. My life has always been simple. No questions, no answers. Just take it as it comes.

I never looked for answers in life. What’s the point? They would seldom be the ones I want them to be. No, I never worried about knowing what the answers were. Maybe that is why I didn’t like questions.

That’s an example of how the boy perceives the world surrounds him. So simple and so true. This book doesn’t tell about a story, like diary, it tells fragments of the boy’s life. Chapter by chapter.

Often I found myself smiling about the way he sees things. I feel like he puts mirror in front of me to show how stupid I am thinking the world the way I think. To take things seriously and complicatedly while things are not as complicated as it looks. He teaches me to see things in naïve way, in simple way, to make life easier.

I remember a friend told me about what he learned recently. He works for a big burger company where he is one in the top layer. Of course he is super smart and creative. He said that he was still learning how to answer a question ‘stupidly’. I looked at him What? He added that.. to answer a question smartly is an easy thing to do. Very easy, like automatically. But to cater the crazy world outside, he developed what he called thinking things stupidly which he found it more difficult than otherwise. I texted him earlier today to remind me the term he used. He forgot but I know it will come soon.

Back to Jayawardena, I admired the way he writes about the boy. He also had the capability to see things ‘stupidly’. For sure a Captain cannot be stupid so his writing shows his ability to view things from the other side. That shows that it may be true that we deal with ‘unreal’ problems because all problems are illusions of the mind (from Tolle’s book The Power of Now). I’m in love-hate with this book that turns reality into illusions to 'ease life'. Grr..

Now let’s take the challenge to see the world from different side, in different way, to understand more of this crazy world. Please enjoy another paragraph from Sam showing the way he perceives his ‘stupidity’:

One day no one was at home. I swept the entire garden and collected a lot of dirt, mostly fallen leaves. I threw all that into the river, just to see what would happen. Nothing happened. The dirt got swallowed by the water and drifted down. I carefully watched till it all disappeared. I wanted to tell the Madam that nothing happens when you put dirt into the river. But Janet stopped me. ‘Don’t be stupid, Sam, don’t tell them everything that happens here.’ That’s what she said. I didn’t want to be stupid.