Once upon a time, son

they used to laugh with their hearts

and laugh with their eyes;

but now they only laugh with their teeth,

while their ice-block-cold eyes

search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed

they used to shake hands with their hearts;

but that’s gone, son.

now they shake hands without hearts

while their left hands search

my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home’! ‘Come again’;

they say, and when I come

again and feel

at home, once, twice,

there will be no thrice—

for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.

I have learned to wear many faces

like dresses— homeface,

officeface, streetface, hostface,

coctailface, with all their conforming smiles

like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned, too,

to laugh with only my teeth

and shake hands without my heart.

I have also learned to say, ‘Goodbye’,

when I mean "Good-riddance’:

to say ‘Glad to meet you’,

without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.

I want to be what I used to be

when I was like you, I want

to unlearn all these muting things.

Most of all, I want to relearn

how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!

So show me, son,

how to laugh; show me how

I used to laugh and smile

once upon a time when I was like you.

--By Gabriel Okara, 'Once Upon a Time'.

I miss the innocence of childhood. The spontaneity of childhood. Those carefree days when oe could run around open spaces and not be told off for being 'unruly'. Don't you? Think about it.

When you were about four or five, you were allowed to run around, allowed to make noise, allowed to ask embarrassing questions, allowed to do whatever you wanted to do. However, as you grew up, you gradually began to learn that you can't do that, you shouldn't ask embarrassing questions, and you can't run around because you just can't. Although you gain in freedom, in that you are now able to go out, and are given more freedom with what you can do, you lose something in return for that freedom. As we grow up, we become 'too cool' to just tear around the room, laughing or playing, we become 'too cool' to talk to our parents, to admit we love them, and we become 'too cool' to show our true selves, our true personality.

I find that when many people reach the stage of being a teenager, they become well pleased with the fact that they are now give more freedom to do what they want, but they lose that innocence, somehow. They lose the ability to communicate as they used to when they were children, because they are 'well-mannered', and they know now that they shouldn't be as spontaneous as they had been as children. Of course, I understand that manners must be in place so that people are not offended on a daily basis, but don't you think society cages people up?

Think about it.

There are all these manners we must take note of, all these little courtesies we must remember. ANd as we grow into adults, we become more hypocritical than ever. We know now that we must be tactful; we know now that we must act in a certain manner amongst certain people, and we know also how to act and talk to persuade people to think our way. I mean, I'm already seeing this happen within school! To think that school is supposed to be a place of learning and not a school of acting! But I see people acting all the time. Acting to get a teacher's favour, acting to gain popularity, acting to get into a certain clique that will up your status in school...and why? Perhaps because as we grew up, we learnt from society that we have to be a certain way to fit in, that we have to behave in a certain manner to get others to like us. And that is sad, don't you think? It means that one has to trim down one's personality, no matter how unique or different, just to fit in to society's mould. Then what happens to uniqueness? What happens to special talents? What happens to those who don't fit in? They are either cast out, or forced to conform and be what society and their parents want them to be. When you think about it, how many people's talents have gone to waste just because society thought they couldn't be utilised? And how many of those people now hold corporate jobs they all hate to the bottom of hell?

Probably all or most of them. And why? Perhaps their parents refused to let them take the courses they wanted to take; perhaps they decided not to take that road because society taught them to follow the stream, follow the waves. It's funny, isn't it? How, when you think you're becoming more mature, you think you're beginning to understand people better, that's actually when you start misunderstanding them, because you've 'grown' so much in body and mind, that you misinterpret what the people are saying to you. I feel like laughing; when one says that they now know everything, and has grown enough to stand on their own, what they are actually saying is that they have grown cynical enough to misinterpret people, to lose their temper more often, and to trim their personalities down to a point where they have almost nothing left.

Many people in school nowadays are changing themselves to fit into a certain clique, and why? Simply because they do not want to be left out, to be left behind. They put on a mask; they put on a performance even Oscar winners would envy; eventually, they fit into the clique, they are popular, but when they turn around to try and find their true character again, they discover that it has deserted them. They find that it left them a long time ago, and fall into their own trap. The irony of this; we claim to be different, to be unique, but in the end, are we all simply blind sheep following the herd?

Why do we do this?

Why do we purposely change ourselves to fit into society? While friendship is about adapting yourself to fit your friends, it doesn't mean you change yourself completely to suit them! If you do, and it is what many are doing nowadays, then it isn't friendship any longer, but, rather, an uneasy partnership! I find it quite saddening to see so many of my friends practising what their parents are probably doing in business; pretending to like a person, pretending to be what they truly aren't. In a way, isn't that lying to yourself? Isn't that deliberately changing and putting a mask on to suit the likes of others? Then falling into your own trap when you turn around and realise that your character isn't there anymore, or isn't what it was before?

And who taught them to do this, to be hypocritical, to restrain their true being?

Society.

We are caged by society and by manners that we must follow.

And talents go to waste, relegated to their so-called 'proper' postions of mere hobbies.

All the world, from the time that you are aware of your surroundings, is a play, and we are all the hopelessly devoted actors on that stage.

And there is no retirement scheme.

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