Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you finally live
With veracity
And love.-Hafez, poet (1315-1390)
That’s kinda sweet. It came in my Word-a-Day email this morning. I looked at it and thought that for Hafez, that’s a little weak. Hafez was a powerful poet.
Then I thought, Training wheels? On what?
Does anybody how there know what they were putting training wheels on for kids in the 14th century? Frequently enough that it made its way into the idiomatic lexicon of a Persian poet in Shiraz?
I think somebody got a little too free with their translation there, is my point.
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Agree. Translators are often too cute for their own should—especially translators of poetry & bibles.But I like Hafez observation because it's true. If we think about it, many of our ideas of right and wrong change as we mature just as the ideas of, say, a tomato plant. Focus changes from seed, to seedling, to rooting and leaving, photosynthesis, to bearing of fruit so that more seeds may be thrust forward into some possible future.Like people. And the resources we allocate and develop naturally and over time change as well to suit the stage of life. It's a miracle I tell ya', a freakin' miracle!Who comes up with these things?;-)