Thursday 15 May 2008

It all depends on your viewpoint

There was an advert...oh probably fifteen or more years ago now. It ran on TV and showed a thug pushing over a smart-suited business man. The ad showed the same scene from several angles - the thug was chasing after the man, the thug was trying to steal the briefcase. The final angle looked up and showed scaffolding falling from a crane and the thug was simply a good samaritan pushing the man to safety. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. To a short person, the man of average stature is tall, to the lanky, he is short. And so on. It all depends. To an adult, a 13 year old is still young, inexperienced and a child...may be with the physical ambitions of an adult, may be with the sense that will get them to adulthood. But still a child. To another thirteen-year old, though that youth can be grown-up, thoughtful, mature and someone to be looked up to. And the point of this? After almost three weeks the boy brought home the cards he'd been given by his school friends. When I put them up I laughed as there was something so glaringly obvious about each and every one of them. All the adults had sent the boy an array of child-appropriate birthday cards, whilst his friends sent him adult humour, thoughtful and simply most tasteful greetings. My card to him was a picture of a racing motorbike going hell for leather round a track; a friend sent him one with a black and white image of a vintage bike. I know which card I would keep. Sometimes you just need to change your perspective to get the best view! And by the way the ad I mentioned at the start was for The Guardian

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