Pick any nursery rhyme and/or check out any supposed children's dance based on a rhyme. and examine the words and their content carefully. These ostensibly child-oriented poems, these harmless, gentle little rhymes, catch children's interests and even encourage participation in early poetry development. However, in light of current times, of historic times, perhaps these words and rhymes are deserving of more intense examination. Exactly what are we teaching our little ones? Does the import of these words, any words, carry over into real life decisions, and behavior?
Nursery rhymes I can recall are reeking of violence and tragedies in the making. Ring Around the Rosy, London Bridges, Jack and Jill, the moon and the cows et al, Humpty Dumpty and we can go on and on. Add to that the stories of the fairy tale genre. Children being eaten, abandoned by parents, devalued and treated as trash, outer beauty emphasized, bizarre punishments and evil triumphing for quite some lengths of time. Over and over again.
Now do not get me wrong; I am a strong opponent of censorship, but certainly, we need to know what the children are internalizing from these reading sessions. Perhaps it is upon us to add some commentary and discussion on the right and the wrong of these nursery rhyme selections as a child is capable of understanding. What is real and what is not? What do we wish our little ones to understand and either reject or internalize in positive manner and outcome?
From there, we must take several giant steps into the world of growing children, young adults and mature adults. Check out the behavior patterns over the millennia. Examine the events of today and yesterday and years ago. Protest and protesters have abandoned the idea of quests for peace. Instead, we see violence valued, theft and robbery en masse, and the negative emotions and goals of anger, hatred along with calls for more, even deadly ugliness. Wild in the streets. Hurting. Violating security. Destroying. Examine the ugly phenomena of children bringing guns to school for the purpose of killing their fellow schoolmates.
Now think of the glow seen from space, orange and yellow outbursts over the lands of our planet, and be horrified, terrified at the inevitable progress we are making at ever increasing pace, on the road to Perdition and the finality of the human race as we know it. Instead of valuing the better, true progress, we champion the worst of us. We selectively choose what we see and hear and act accordingly. We indulge and empower our worst traits and thoughts as we accelerate, ever more intense and successful in our misguided paths and decisions. Nursery rhymes on crack, adult level weight, and aren't we so proud.
Another leap into the words of today. It is just about at the point where we can honestly say words do not matter. Certainly not in any positive manner. Those which speak of hope and positivity are discounted and debased, treated as chaff in the wind. The predictions of better days never seem to materialize, and if they do, their existence is ephemeral. On the other hand, the words of threat and violence, of the emotions of hate realized via actions of hate - those words are seen as real and consequential. Hence, they are acted upon and believed. Hence, our world today.
When words are empty of meaningful truth, then they reek of negative attachments, when they portend only more violence and bloodshed, more loss of rights, progress derailed, even turned back, we find ourselves in a world of hopelessness. It is so deep and pervasive that even to imagine escape from this world demands a huge prodigious, almost superhuman effort to conceptualize and bring to an actual realization.
Homework for today: peruse the world of print and daily news, online tidbits sent to you via online paths. Ponder the many versions of truth presented before you on a cracked plate on the edge of total failure of use and purpose. Try to distinguish between the various versions of truth. Now think of the truth beneath those words and phrases. Heartbreaking in fact and deed.
Tomorrow I will bring my homework results to the blog. Who among us will fail and who will pass? Which is better, in fact? Cudgel your mind almost to the breaking point, allow the reality and the truth to filter through. It will not be a pretty picture in images or spoken or printed word.
Nursery rhymes adult style. Ugly.
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