10 October 2006
riddles and walking away
A couple of months ago, I had to write copy for a milk brand. According to my research, it is expected for children to challenge limits. They are trying to feel their way in the world; therefore, they must find out for themselves up to how far they are allowed, or able, to go.If you ask a child to stay close, he will walk away.
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It's been a long time since I've last posted. Much has happened since then. I find myself unable to reply to the comments anymore but all the same, thanks to those who had something to say.
Does this post mean that I'm back? Certainly, I have done some redecorating. Honestly, I don't know.
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Last night at Cafe Ysabela, Margie, who was baffled by the riddles that envelope her own life, decided to play this game with me. She asked riddles that went like "A man goes inside the restaurant, orders soup, takes one spoonfull of it, goes out and shoots himself. Why did he do this?"
As sure as I was that Margie (and the person who invented this riddle) has a single answer in mind, I told her that I cannot give her THE correct answer. Besides me having low EQ and that there's just no way in hell I'm gona trouble myself with analyzing, I realized that there is no one answer. The world is full of possibilities, a single event has more than one reason for happening and he who was not in the middle of things could not ever know the whole truth. For that matter, no one could ever know the whole truth. No one.
In this case though, I could try all night and finally give her the answer she was waiting for but that won't mean that the other answers I come up with would be wrong. If I get THE answer, it would just mean that I had pursued the same trail of thought as she did. It was not going to be a correct answer. It was going to be the same answer as hers.
Well, I never found out why Margie thought the man freakin shot himself. But I hope she found a better answer to that riddle that's been bugging her all night. A reason that favors her. It is, after all, her answer, and not his.
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