Today, I thought of a young boy I used to tutor during my university years. He was just seven years old at the time, newly settled in Hong Kong. I tutored him almost every day, and he seemed to grow quite attached to me. He’d always complete his homework diligently, occasionally throwing in a joke or two to make me laugh.
Of course, much of our time was spent talking or playing, which his parents not only allowed but encouraged. I found that rather rare, and deeply refreshing.
One day, he asked me whether I liked Celebrity A or Celebrity B better. I wasn’t familiar with either, so I casually picked the one I thought was more handsome. “Why?” he asked. I replied that the other one wasn’t as good-looking. He paused for a moment, then said very seriously, “No, everyone is beautiful.”
I felt a pang of guilt. When had I started judging people by their appearances?
On another occasion, he solved a tricky maths problem and exclaimed, “I’m so smart!” Amused, I responded, “Yes, you are! I’m so silly.” Not catching my joke, he looked at me earnestly and said, “No one is silly. We all have a brain, big and useful.”
A side note: since he attended an international school, we mostly communicated in English. But those words—simple as they were—held a kind of quiet wisdom, even poetry.
There’s a line in The Little Prince that came to mind:
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Even if we can’t become the adults we once dreamed of being, at the very least, let’s not become the adults we once despised. Take the time to feel things deeply, because the most beautiful things are often invisible to the eye.
Here’s A Different Age by Current Joys. Imagine if every adult’s heart could remain forever a child’s—what a wonderful world that would be.
