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Jul 28, 2014

How to look at the world

It is fun to look at the world through our granddaughter’s eyes. Alice is visiting from the States, but probably have little use for such concepts as America or Russia. Even the existence of two languages has yet to occur to her as something important. She is busy learning to speak, and is figuring out syntax pretty well by mixing English with Russian. Eto mine, a еtо-Baba’s. My upala. Eto my samokat.

If you watch TV, which I won’t recommend to anyone, the existence of countries is a big deal. When you’re two, you find nothing strange in the fact that one set of grandparents are called Susan and Daniel, and the other – Sveta and Sasha. They sometimes call things differently. Just remember, the big white round thing is a ball, and the smaller green one is myachik. When I was a kid, I did not realize Russian and Ukrainian are two different languages. There was just a way my grandma spoke, and the way my grandpa spoke. The couple never switched to the same language, because there was no need to do that. Grandpa only spoke like grandma when he was teasing her. It was the same with my uncle and aunt: he always spoke Ukrainian, and she – Russian. Both used creative profanities. Aunt Polina was a big master at that, but my grandpa and grandma never did. That did not seem strange either.

The feeling of the strange – in both senses of the word – is the dubious privilege of adults. They start with small differences about some silly thing, and then eventually shoot at each other. Two-year-olds can smack each other, but cannot think of killing someone. People who say that people are innately aggressive get it wrong. This may or may not be true about adults, but small children (properly cared for) have very little use for violence, it is just not helpful. Adults cannot help it but kill each other. Some – directly, with guns and knives, others – indirectly, through armies, rockets, governments. They kill with votes, with taxes, with words – anything, really. Their world seems to be dark and getting darker. Unless you look at it through the eyes of a two-year-old. And then it looks fine again.

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