I was very young when this happened: I was with a friend (her name was Mihaela), she was much older than me. At one point, we saw a big group of people. We went a few steps in that direction, to see what was going on. At some point, Mihaela covered my eyes, so I would not see. I think I heard some screaming. I did not understand much, perhaps someone committed suicide, or something of this sort happened. I was unsure, we went from there, I think listened to her command not to look. A lot of time I thought about this scene, wondering what has happened.
Did Mihaela do good?
See this:
A farmer had only one horse. One day, his horse ran away.
His neighbors said, “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.”
The man just said, “We’ll see.”
A few days later, his horse came back with twenty wild horses following. The man and his son corraled all 21 horses.
His neighbors said, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!”
The man just said, “We’ll see.”
One of the wild horses kicked the man’s only son, breaking both his legs.
His neighbors said, “I’m so sorry. This is such bad news. You must be so upset.”
The man just said, “We’ll see.”
The country went to war, and every able-bodied young man was drafted to fight. The war was terrible and killed every young man, but the farmer’s son was spared, since his broken legs prevented him from being drafted.
His neighbors said, “Congratulations! This is such good news. You must be so happy!”
The man just said, “We’ll see.”
(source, I copied the whole text, since it’s a very popular text on the Internet, and I think it’s something which has no copyright)
Coming back to the story with Mihaela. When I was little, I regretted her decision, I thought she did wrong not allowing me to see what was going on.
Fast forward to more recent times, and I think she did good. There are two things to put in balance:
- Not knowing what happens, keeping things a mystery, being a bit forced to things in a way I didn’t want them to happen.
- Being protected from bad images, keeping me away from them.
I now think the second part was much better.
I think it’s more like in the fable, where you can analyse a situation on a different level, and it gets only more complex. Sure, some broken legs are bad, but the picture is usually much bigger than this.
Life’s a bit complicated, and saying for sure “this is good” vs. “this is evil” is not as simple as it seems at the first sight.
There’s room for uncertainty. (In Romanian – Romania Culturala & Omul fără dileme | Dilema Veche)