Rest in Peace!
There is that old saying- Children should be seen and not heard! Remember that?
About 10 years ago, as modern society marched on towards personal freedom and better childcare systems, such a statement could bee seen as horrific and Victorian-Draconian attitude! It goes on a par with cruelty such as taking a 5 month old baby and stroking it’s genitals with wet towel to make him pee (I’ve done that to baby squirrels…not human babies!).
But world has gone crazy in the last 10 years! Now every where I go, towns, cities, buses, trains, and neighbouring houses – children are just making noise! Noise that is socially unacceptable!! Play is absolutely fine, but they are just screeching, screaming, announcing their emotions and rights (“I got rights bruv”) in every frequency in every medium! And it’s one thing if they have earned this liberty (“Thas takin liberty ..innit?”). But Unlike Victorian Children,or the thousands of kids in 3rd world countries who are sold by family to earn a living, servant jobs, slave labour, or in best of scenario – going to work or digging local rubbish tips for things they can find and sell to earn a living- these modern day i-pod carrying, loud obnoxious children of the western worlds have NOT worked hard or earned the right to be socially rebellious!
They get everything they want – either their parents give it, or they just rob some person in the streets (in their `gangs’) or bully other kids in school. I know – I’ve seen it during my time as a Secondary School Science Teacher! (I’ve also seen good behaviour from under-privileged or moderately disabled kids in special schools..who appreciate the opportunity they are given. I was a Voluntary Class room assistant in such a school for 6 months once, going every day!)
We now live in a noise-culture, where there is no such thing as privacy or whispering in a low voice in a bus. Oh No. People have to make every statement loud, to announce it to everyone. It’s this Celebrity culture too.. trying to live like Celebs, without having earned our way towards that position in society!
I have a large garden with wonderful Willow tree, ever greens…but seldom have time there – due to the noisy kids next door (and their parents shouting and arguing). My sister has a similar problem where she lives too – her next door neighbour entertains their thudding grandchildren who thump up and down the floors! I can;t have peaceful journeys in trains, trams, buses…or streets. I have to go really far into woods and parks, or come out to my own garden at very late hours when others have gone to bed – to enjoy scraped moments of silence and peace.
This Noisy world is getting Noisier. and everyone is just quoting their `rights’. What a joke! And where will it end?
I worry that the only peace am going to get is either in a mountain in the Himalayas, or inside my own coffin when I finally die. Is that why they say, `Rest in Peace’? It used to be the last place for peace after a life of trials, but now a coffin seems the only place for peace ?
What do you think??
-Mani
QuantumPhoenix 