Hide & Seek

Close your eyes and count till 10. Ready or not, here I come….
We all grew up playing different versions of this game. The joy of not being caught, the joy of seeing someone else being caught, the joy of finding a secret place to hide, the eagerness to see if the denner is coming to find you, all are nostalgic. Game ends when all are found and once a secret spot, no longer remains a secret after the first round. Here is my perception of the game spilling and filling the reality of life.

We all start the game of hide and seek in life with every situation and relationship of our life. The only difference is we don’t realise that even in life there is a count down to 10 and ready or not someone does come to find us and the game ends once we are caught. The most powerful denner is our conscious who is always ready to catch us when we hide. This game starts at a very young age which we fail to realise. In a class, we always want to talk more when the teacher says: “pin drop silence”. There is always one friend in the group who tells, “lets do this, no one will know”. In college someone will walk us through the path to start something very fascinating which might be as simple as bunk a class to watch a movie or to start smoking. Every act starts with a countdown to hide.

When I started writing this blog my daughter saw the title and told me, now there is a new game called “seek & hide”. Here they find who is hiding and then go and hide along with them. Life did change its course and the games played show the difference. In life when we are wrong, we try to hide our mistakes but in the current world we see lot of instances where kids and adults are motivated to do wrong and join people who did wrong. Right conscious at times seems to be a rare find.

During my childhood, my grandmother used to close one of our eyes and sing a song for everyone to hide. Our goal was to come back and touch my grandma without being caught. So, she was our safety zone. In today’s life we all are lacking that safety zone where we can confide anything and everything. Kids are scared of parents more than they love them. Spouses are competing with each other more than being companions. Peers are only being compared rather than being company for each other.

Why is our protection not giving security to our loved ones?
Why is our concern perceived as restricted boundary?

What should we change in our love which will change its perception leading to a world with better perspective? In any relationship we live, we hide things which we presume to hurt the other person and when they seek the truth it looks like “game over”. But fortunately, life is much more than a game which ends. So, when we learn to talk, we forget that we should also learn to express in a way which communicates our intent to the other person.  We usually communicate words and end the conversation with a verdict we love to own but fail to realise we are in each other’s life to understand and be there no matter what because everyone has to live their life on their own terms.

As adults if we fail to share the reality of life with our kids, they believe that is the right thing to do and learn to hide their reality from us. As they grow, we start to blame them for learning something we taught. Exposure and access to information makes us feel we don’t have to share everything with family. We are capable of handling our problems on our own. It is not the capability which counts but our vulnerability which matters. We adults always think kids need protection so when there is a problem we say: “don’t worry, we will handle”, “you don’t have to take stress, we will manage”. These statements are not always told to mean what they state, but for a young mind it is a security. Whereas for a growing mind it is a mystery. They feel managing or handling difficult situation without sharing how it is done makes you an adult. So as kids reach adolescence they thrive and strive to become independent adults. In the rush to prove their individuality, they start to hide things and continue to believe that sharing everything with their parents makes them look like kids which they no longer want to be.

Parents always focus on knowing the tips and tricks of parenting but often ignore that our duty as parents is not only taking care of kids. It is our prime responsibility to make that tiny world of ours to an adult who is as humane as we intent to be towards them. We upbring kids who are individuals who continue to remain our child, but they don’t remain kids for the world, and they do need to understand hide and seek or seek and hide, both can be enjoyed as games and when we know we are playing them for fun. When games enter life, relationships are at stake and the price and prize are both unexpected and unpredictable for which none of us are prepared.

 Life needs security and it comes through sincere companion
               Life needs stability and it comes through stable relationships.

When a parent is capable to teach a kid, “A for Apple” while the kid knows nothing, the same parent is equally efficient to teach the kid that expressing emotional turmoil can be disheartening and overwhelming at times but is important as it also has a soothing effect which is how we develop the depth of any relationship. It is our expression the kids seek, and it is our hidden feelings which they learn to hide.

When you hide something, you build curiosity. Curiosity is like a shallow pond. Interest of knowing what is hidden overpowers the person involved and instead of seeking why was it hidden we only focus on what is hidden which slowly pushes the relationship to hide in its lost space for never to be found again.

Don’t lose what is hidden and don’t hide to be lost. Games are played to end with fun. Life is lived to enjoy the games which make it fun. Don’t confuse game to life and life to game. Hiding inculcates the urge to seek. When we focus more on seeking what is hidden, we might hide what is actually meant to be sought.

Cherish every moment and seek all the love by hiding nothing.
Play the game but don’t play life.