My little 5-year-old brother is one of the happiest and most curious people alive. He lives without worries, without problems, without regrets. He just lives. Everyday, when he comes back from school, he runs towards me to hug me with a huge smile drawn in his face. Sometimes little Daniel asks me questions such as: "What would happen if we went to the moon?" or even "If Jesus is dead, how can he see us?". Other times he comes into my room when I'm playing the piano. He doesn't know how to play, but he just watches me and stares, fascinated. Then he tries to play as well. Everything is so big for him, everything is so amazing, that he won't stay still, because he always wants to know more about the world that surrounds him.
You see, when you're a kid, most of the things you see, hear and smell each day are new for you, therefore, you look up in astonishment at things that adults take for granted. For adults, life has become a "habit": they think there is nothing new for them to see.
In the book "Sophie's World", Jostein Gaarder compares children with philosophers. To explain this, he uses a metaphor. He says that the universe is like a white rabbit that has been pulled out of a magician's hat. We are microscopic insects living in the fur of that rabbit. When we are born, we are at the top of its hairs, wobbling, but firmly staring into the big blue magician's eyes. The magician represents all the things that we still don't understand about life, all the mysterious things that make life possible. We want to find out who he is and what he is doing to us. This is why kids ask so many questions. However, when we begin to grow up, we get tired of hanging from the tip of the rabbit's hairs, we crawl down, make ourselves comfortable deep into the cozy fur of the rabbit and stop caring about what's going on out there. Eventually, we even forget that we are being part of a trick and we believe what other people say that the truth is because we find it too difficult to find our own. Only philosophers, like children, climb up again in order to inquire the magician and come to their own conclusions about who he really is. By the way, I absolutely recommend you to read this book if you want to enrich your perspective on life.
But what is this rabbit thing all about? It's basically about trying to live like a kid, in the way that we should never think that life is boring or that something is not worth our interest. You might think that there isn't much more to know about life because you already know a lot and you might make every day seem identical to the previous one, not caring about the little wonderful details that make every day special: sadly, many people do so. Question everything you hear and try to find every possible answer to it (but make sure you find your OWN answer). I swear if you do this, you will never have a minute of boredom and you will find life way more interesting.
Life is indeed fascinating, and just like my brother stares at me when I play the piano, I sometimes stare at the stars at night, wondering about our existence, thinking of how perfect the universe is. If you think this is crazy, it means that you're comfortably warm on the fur of the rabbit, not feeling the strong wind and unsteadiness of the top of its hairs. But, if you want, you can still climb up those hairs and begin to feel the excitement of being alive. Just remember: the only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder...
