“Children are so innocent…so pure…
Ohh, to be a child again, if only for a day…”
How often do we say this when we see a child hug a stranger, splash in a puddle, pet a snail!
How often are we overcome with a sense of unknown longing that accompanies these words?
What is that emotion that lies buried and lurking in our nostalgia?
It’s hard to say when we grew up and stopped being innocent children.
If I had to pinpoint the exact moment when this magic of childhood was ruthlessly taken away from us, I would say it was that specific day when they introduced us to ADJECTIVES.
Ironic I know, for someone so wrapped up in, and in love with words, to blame the downfall of the entire human race on an unassuming figure of speech.
But it’s the bitter truth.
There we were, minding our own business, chasing bubbles and butterflies when BAM….They hit us with that dreaded table!
You remember the one….
Degree of Comparison of Adjectives
(We can probably still hear the tik-tik-tikking sound of the white chalk on the black board as teachers around the world wrote out that long title…and unknowingly led us into a world of discrimination! Not just towards others but also ourselves)
Good….Better….Best
Smart….Smarter….Smartest
Pretty….Prettier….Prettiest
Rich….Richer….Richest
Nice….Nicer….Nicest
Handsome….More handsome….Most handsome
Successful….More successful….Most successful
And that was it! We were forever and irreversibly,
Ruined….More ruined….Most ruined!
The creators of languages tricked us by putting these degrees of comparison in a sweet sing-song rhyming format, when really they should have been permanently etched onto brutally competitive race tracks.
Because with that lesson, they set the course of the rest of our lives.
To Compare and Compete!
Subconsciously, our still innocent minds, registered this concept….
No matter how Good you may be, someone else is always…Better…Best.
And that leaves us feeling…Most Inadequate!
At first they led us to believe that adjectives exist to enhance a sentence; to make it more descriptive; to visually explain and beautify a noun.
The hard rock
The soft pillow
A large crowd
A graceful dance
This makes sense. It helps! Just one additional word, yet it gives us a much better sense of what the other person is trying to convey to us.
Until we became so conditioned to this game of associating comparative adjectives whenever we thought of a noun, that we crossed over to the dark side and were doomed forever.
“Here comes the powerful man, but he’s not as powerful as the other.”
“My house is big, but not bigger than theirs.”
“There’s a young lady outside, seated beside the younger girl.”
And then, just to seal the deal they followed it up with a lesson on ‘Opposites.’
Because what really is…
dark, if not the absence of light?
good, unless you’ve experienced bad?
tall, unless someone else is short?
Luck, unless someone else is unlucky?
Poor even though you have all you need, until you see someone rich who has more?
You get the drift…
So yes, I blame the makers of all languages.
What if we had a day without labels?
What if we could simply be happy?!
Without aspiring for any accompanying word for this emotion: None of this ‘happier’ ‘happiest’ ‘more’ or ‘less’ business!
What if they had instructed us then, that comparisons must be made to describe objects only. For real living people, their lives and emotions, the use of suffixes is incorrect!!
And by the powers vested in the great laws of grammar, we are permitted to use only one single word to describe them: ENOUGH!
How would our conversations go then?
Not just conversations…how would our lives go, if we truly and consistently thought of ourselves as such:
I am…enough!
Happy enough!
Rich enough!
Healthy enough!
Nice enough!
Influential enough!
Tall enough!
Thin enough!
Strong enough!
Hard working enough!
Loved enough!
Life has been :
Good enough!
Busy enough!
Lazy enough!
Fun enough!
Kind enough!
Successful enough!
Would we then be able to get off this race-track and simply stroll down our own leisurely path at our own leisurely pace?
Would we perhaps be free of the judgement of others because they too would be ‘secure and content enough’ in their own lives?
World there be fewer wars, less toxicity, less envy, less destruction?
Would we then finally stop being…
Busy….Busier….Busiest
Tired….More tired….Most tired
Stressed….More stressed….Most stressed
I for one, certainly intend to try to undo this life-sentence of compari-SIN and unnecessary competition in order to live as ‘Happy Enough’ a life as possible!
After all,
Knowledge is remembering what you learnt in school…
Wisdom is knowing how much of it to un-learn in life!
Comparison is the thief of joy
-Theodore Roosevelt
Ps: This is yet another piece from my
What if…Maybe series,
where I share with you my simplistic, idealistic, unrealistic, whimsical hope for a kinder world
- Nitya Alwani Satyani happiness #englishgrammar #rules #English #grammar #grammarrules #adjectives #comparison #numberone #racetofinish #numbergame #competition #happy #content #enough #bliss
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Sunset Effect - Nitya Satyani 