BIRTH OF CONSCIENCE IN THE CHILD
There is frequently more to be learn’d from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
John Locke
Conscience unfolds as an attribute of inner knowledge in the young person; with it develops a sense of self and relationship to the wider world. Just as in nature, plants cannot help but ripen in order to flourish by producing fruit and seed, so also the human being cannot avoid the lawful requirement to grow and mature. ‘Ripeness is all,’ Shakespeare says in King Lear, with which he means to suggest that inner maturity is a consummate state and induces deep happiness.
The lightness of being, which the achievement of the goal of striving to mature suffuses our ego, lifts us out of the travails of the past. Gone are all the unpleasant, troubling issues that weighed us down and often provoked anger and frustration. In the haze of immaturity and indecision that accompanied many an unclear deed, we were exposed to untold dangers.
The confusion, which can be many-sided, pervades the enormous volatility of the bustling modern world and ramps up the inner insecurity to deep excruciating anxiety. And when this fear, raised to boiling heat, unloads like an explosion, there is nothing left but renewed confused desires together with the old fears.
Relief, however,
