When I was a little boy, I believed that everyone except me was some sort of a zombie or monster and they were all fooling me somehow, hiding a great secret. I suppose the reason I thought this was because I always thought I was different from everyone else. It seemed like everyone was “getting it”, and I wasn’t. This “it” was the workings of the world, the people in this world, the societies, the reason for language, the purpose of things like education, teachers, and even the smallest things like food, sleep, baths, clothes, jobs, etc. People, even kids my own age, seemed to be creatures of different species and it seemed like they all had a good understanding of the world and why things are the way they are and I didn’t. I always let myself wonder, allowed myself to think of the most absurd of thoughts never understanding why others don’t think like me. Here are some of the things I thought about as a little boy (and still sometimes do!):
When I was a little boy, I believed that my brain was another guy. This is a great idea. I imagined (and still sometimes do) my brain to be another guy with his own personality. I imagined him to be this fat sarcastic guy who is sitting inside my mind just talking to me. Don’t get freaked. Its not like I needed an imaginary friend back then. I was quite popular and I had enough friends to converse with. But there was something special about this guy. He was kind of annoying and was always up to no good. A part of me thought of him as my OWN mind, and another part thought of me as another entity from my mind. He would pop up more often than not explaining things to me when I am reading, talking things through when I am solving a problem, or he would simply pop up to annoy me when I dont need him there. For example, if I were to hear of a bad news like a friend failing a test, then I would genuinely feel sad for that person and hope it gets better. This is when the dude pops up in my mind and says the exact opposite of how I am feeling. He would say something like “oh good, he failed”.. At this point, I would be like “shut up brain, youre not supposed to say that”. As I get more annoyed, the dude bugs me more by saying more mean things. I don’t think I had a mental disorder or anything, but I think at times my imagination (or whatever it was), took over myself and I didnt know how to handle it. This guy is also responsible for some of my beliefs of the world as a little boy. He would feed me random thoughts to ponder about and just explore. They were quite absurd, but pretty good things to think about.
When I was a little boy, I believed that everyone was wearing fake skin and they were infact something else. I believed that humans, in reality, look like something other than how they look like to me. At one point, I even asked my mother if she is non-human. I even asked if they are all trying to fool me into believing that they are human. I don’t remember her laughing, but I remember her asking me, in a serious tone, to think about it logically. If they were all non-human how could they have fooled me for so many years. They would’ve had to come out of their fake skin at some point, and since I was always in contact with a human at one point or another in my life, I should’ve seen them doing this. Moreover, my mom told me to confirm this my trying to take her skin off! Believe it or not, I tried this. I tried pinching her skin, but it wouldn’t come off. After this incident, I felt more safe in where I was in the world and believed that ATLEAST my mom isn’t one of them (HAHAHA, just kidding, I think I abandoned my whole theory after this).
When I was a little boy, I thought I had figured out why Gods exist in religion. I think it was when I was learning about something in science. Like the the process of evaporation and condensation or something like that and how rain forms. It was then that I realized that people in the past probably didn’t know about all these scientific principles but they knew that they existed. They knew there was some phenomenon causing things in nature but couldn’t explain it. So they attributed it all to a phenomenon, which they called God. So everything in nature that happened, which they could not explain, they attributed it to God. And this is how, I believed, God came about. Now that I think about it, this was a pretty good theory I had back then.. haha… The existence of God was something I thought about throughout my childhood and I was constantly going back and forth about their existence.
When I was a little boy, I think it was when I was in 5th Grade, I believed that Gods did not exist. And the only reasoning I had behind this was that I couldn’t see them, no one has ever seen them. Nothing they have done has affected me in my life (that I can think of), therefore they do not exist. This was in India, by the way, and even thinking this way was frowned upon. I remember many of my friends trying to convince me otherwise, but I wouldn’t budge. They even told my teachers and they would try to convince me of their existence, but I still wouldn’t budge. I was pretty sure that there are no such things as Gods, the afterlife, reincarnation, etc. Yet, I THINK (don’t remember perfectly) I believed in doing the right thing. I had all these ideas about giving to the poor, helping people, etc. and it came from within, it didn’t have anything to do with fearing god or “rotting in hell”. I think this was a pretty good accomplishment.. (but I kept going back and forth)
When I was a little boy, I think it was in 6th Grade, I started believing in God. I had these great notes in my Kannada class an my teacher borrowed them for some reason. Then she lost it and blamed ME for it somehow.. (that I didn’t ask for it back in time, so now she doesn’t know where it is). For all you non-Indians and Indian ABCDs, in India you NEVER ever talk back to the teacher or do anything to anger her (most of the time, its a ‘her’). If you do, you face her wrath and there is nothing you can do about it. So anyway, I was in BIG trouble, cuz these notes were EVERYTHING.. without them, I was doomed. I think it was about 2 weeks that I went without my notes.. Finally, I felt REALLY helpless and I didn’t know what to do. The teacher wouldn’t help me and there was no one I could go to, who will make it all better. So, in desperation, I Prayed.. I prayed with all my might and said that if I were to get my book back, I would start believing in YOU (I was addressing God at this point). And sure enough, within about 2 days, I got my book back. I think the teacher or her assistant found it. So ever since this point, I started believing in God. I would pray to him whenever I was in trouble or needed his help. When I was ok and content with everything, I would simply thank him. Out of all the prayers I knew, I eventually narrowed down to ones I like and to this day, I’ve been saying those prayers everyday (when I wake up, when I sleep, and after a shower).. but there were many occasions when I re-evaluated the existence and purpose of God, but never to as extreme level as before. I think I will write another post about my whole experience with God and his existence.
When I was a little boy, I often wondered the purpose of life (as everyone does, i suppose), and every time I would end up with different conclusions and it seemed like whatever conclusion I end up with makes sense. I don’t remember all the conclusions. But I imagined something like all the Gods have everything- immortality, health, magic, etc., but the one thing they don’t have is the satisfaction one gets after helping someone. I can think of several arguments against this, but somehow, it made sense to me at the time. I thought that Gods (at this point, i believed Gods are just non-humans who live in the sky.. and there are many of them) came down to the earth to live like humans so that throughout their lives they can help people and get the satisfaction of doing so. They help people not for the sake of helping, but for their own sake, which is the happiness and the satisfaction. These Gods are US, so I suppose we are here to help the most people we can throughout our lives.
When I was a little boy, I often thought about my future and my life in general. The first think I realized was that I only have one life, and one of each day. So I only have ONE of every day. I believed in spending my life in the most IDEAL way possible. So, since I was a little boy, I’ve always been looking into the future and I’ve been pretty serious with my life. Although that has gotten me away from all the evil stuff, it hasn’t been enough to bring the best in me.. I’ve been good, but not the best. In pretty much every group environment, I’ve always been above average, but never one of the best. So anyway, when I was a little boy, I got serious, and I’ve been the same since.
I think this post has been pretty nice that explains my own psychological mind when I was a little boy. Maybe this will come in handy if I were to ever go crazy with all these random thoughts and they have to dissect through my work to find out what’s wrong with me! But even otherwise, it has been nice because I have documented some of the things I remember from my childhood and it has helped me evaluate where I was and how far I have travelled since I was a little boy. If you happen to stumble on this post and you’re my friend. Please leave a comment so I know you saw this.. I don’t want my friends knowing more about me than I think they know about me.. but why did I make this public then you ask? Firstly, to inspire YOU to evaluate all the things YOU thought about and tell me if I am crazy. Secondly, as I said, me going crazy in the future and people being able to find this! Thirdly, I am motivated to get out of my laziness and write this ONLY because I think it will be read by others. So there you go.. when I was a little boy, my imagination ran wild. I wish I was still a little boy. I’m not a little boy, but my imagination is still rampant!
