Reflexions On My Travels In The South Sea (An Afterthought)
All our travel companions agreed on one thing when we talked our trips to the islands:
The one thing they were all most impressed by was the always joyful and nice children.
If the grown-ups in general were very friendly and content, then the children seemed to be happiness personified. Consequently, they were the most sought-after goal of the permanently clicking digital cameras of our companions.
I, too, perceived the children in this way. It was just great to see all those friendly, confident and obviously happy small creatures.
Mind you, these “poor” children had practically nothing – no toys, no dolls, no Lego stones or anything like it. Not even a TV set. And, as some of our travelling companions noted with a mixture of pure incomprehension and mild shock: “They do not even wear shoes”. And I am sure they had no money, either. In exchange, they had plenty of coconuts – and were always in a good mood.
Well, I guess this is what makes all the difference:
You need little for happiness – at least if you are still a child:
- An environment where you never have to go cold and where you can always roam and run, both in water and on land;
- Other people’s love (if you are a child, the love of your parents of relatives);
- And a few nice friends to play with;
- Perhaps, a little later, a school where you learn about the world and where you really enjoy going.
On the South Sea Islands we visited, there was no danger of wild beasts or poisonous snakes.
The parents can do without permanently telling their children how to avoid death in the daily traffic, because there are no cars, or, where there are a few of them, they drive at walking speed.
So the only “predators” to approach with caution are the coconut palm and the sea.
Apparently, it does not make any difference to them that they always have to eat fish, scarcely get any pork and otherwise only have a few vegetables and fruits to eat, either.
Well, don’t you just have to be happy living in those circumstances?
In my family in the rough highlands of Southern Germany (at > 500 metres of altitude), I was granted the privilege of seeing my own seven children grow up. And I was very happy during all the time. And I also believe that our children grew up rather untroubled.
Yet, it all was not quite as easy in our artificial and cultural civilization as I now saw it on the South Sea Islands. And neither did our children radiate joy all day long in the way those South Sea children do.
I wonder if that should make us a little thoughtful.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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