The Weakness of Growing Up

Why do we always seek knowledge? To know more than those around us? It is said that innocence is bliss; likewise to be nave in the world of today is to not understand, and be left in the past, in a dark shadow of want. Innocence is a way to describe someone, as are words like greedy, proud, and kind. But what really defines us? Is it perhaps our flaws of character? Our greatest weaknesses in ourselves are what makes our little shadows under the skin creep out, and allow people to see us for what we really are.

For example, self-doubt can be the worst weakness of all. It holds our tongues, and stops our train of thoughts, and whispers demeaning words in our ears. In the story Eleven, by Sandra Cisneros self-doubt and the inability to speak up are the main characters weaknesses. By not standing up to her teacher right away the girls got the harsh lesson of life in a small spoonful. She saw the injustice of being young, because under her elders she can never be right, even so much as claiming not have ownership over the sweater. She also brings to mind that even as we grow up we are the sum of our ages. Emotions, memories, and habits never leave us. But once we are in the real world we can not just go back to having the emotional span of a three year old.

Secondly, ignorance and secret keeping are faults. Ignorance holds us back from accepting others and their cultures, or understanding their ways of life. The story The Secret Lion, by Alberto Alvaro Rios has a character full of ignorance. Ignorance in school, of understanding the world, and living in a rural area he does not have the understanding of other types of people than those surrounding him. He acts rich at one point in the story and discovers Heaven, which was actually a golf course. Things were perfect when they were a secret from others as they thought their Heaven was. But once Heaven was taken away, all they got in return was golf. What a trade off.

Finally in the last story, The Scarlet Ibis, by James Hurst, a humans greatest fault of all is displayed, pride: They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother (Cisneros 559). It was agony to his character to have his ego deflated, even by something out of his bodily control. He believed himself a small form of God, able to bend mans form to his whim, and push his frail, weak brother past his limits. When he knew that they had failed he ran from Doodle to hide his shame in not only himself, but his little project, the thing proving he was not a God. He left his brother as if he was a mess upon the floor, something shattered and broken and no longer tread over, or ponder over. With his dead brother, died the pride in his heart, as he realized his awful sin. The thing that made, him, him, Pride, the close cousin to green-eyed Jealousy, and the very vain twin of our Egos.

Thus we see how tainted our human natures have become. Weeding, and creeping up through generations to attach a new fresh batch of younglings. Humans should be described by their weakest fault, that way there could only be an up from the lowest point. Innocence, pride, and self-doubt are all harsh weaknesses, but some are contradicting within a person. The only way to move forth and to grow, as a species, is to balance us out, round ourselves, and make way for the better. So which is true, innocence is bliss? Or knowledge is the key to achievement?