Food for Thought

They say when an infant cries, it is either because he is hungry or because he is sleepy. 

Once the mother feeds the child, the child goes back to his happy self until he starts feeling hungry again. Same goes for grown up humans.

Hunger motivates humans to scavenge for food.  Food satisfies the bodily needs; nurtures the biological system and produces energy for us to use. The moment we have consumed the last bit of it; our body gears back into action compelling us to look for food.

There are two kinds of bodies within us which need to grow as we grow. Since our birth till our death, they are constantly dependent on what we feed them.

First is our body, when it feels hungry, it needs food. Second is our mind, when it feels hungry, it needs knowledge. Knowledge is the food for intellectual growth and progress. And just like hunger indicates our need for food; our ability to question indicates our craving for knowledge.

Questioning is an indication that our mind has consumed, accepted, processed whatever knowledge we had given to it. It is now looking for more. Questions spark the exploration for answers, for progress, for theories, for expansion.

Unfortunately, given poor recognition of the second kind of hunger, we have succumbed to shutting our mind. We avoid knowledge by killing our questions. Our questions reappear; just like our bodily hunger resurfaces if we try to kill it.

Yet we burry our questions. In this battle of ignorance and darkness, our minds starve for years and years at length.

A loss of bodily appetite is an indication of poor health. Potions of herbal and allopathic medicines have been devised to reignite bodily hunger. Children are given tonics to help them eat healthy.

A loss of ability to question is an indication of poor intellect and mind. It too requires tonics of provocative thinking; exercises encouraging observation. It requires us to tell children that it is safe to think; to explore; to read; to question. It needs us to create welcoming behavior of comfort zones around questions. A classroom, a relationship, a family table talk, a friends coffee session; all are dungeons of dead minds if they unwelcome questions and discourage observation.

Setting up schools and sending children to acquire the best ranked professional degrees is still not feeding the mind if it is not encouraging provocative thinking. It is like giving best quality health supplements to a patient who requires medicine for heartache.

A dying mind needs to burst the illusions of satisfaction and step into the world of wonders. A world of surprises and bewilderment is the natural habitat of a healthy mind.

If the apple a day keeps the doctor away, imagine the miracles of a question a day.