May you, my friend, be confused

Shall we sing?

Give me knowledge oh Lord

Give me knowledge oh Lord

Give me knowledge to read and understand

Give me knowledge oh Lord

Not knowledge to cause confusion

Not knowledge to go astray

But knowledge to read and understand

Give me knowledge oh Lord

Okay. That was a song we sang almost everyday in my primary school days. If we weren’t singing that, we were singing:

Make me a good child like Samuel

He was obedient and so respectful

He would never argue with his parents

Always obedient, oh Lord

And where has that got us? We are a bunch of people who learnt how to read and read and then...? A culture who values obedience as much as we do is suspect. Since we do not want the knowledge to cause confusion, we become stuck in outdated confusion. No new thing here, no change wanted here. No, you might say. We like change. We even voted change in the last election. You call recycling an old head of state change? Like, that’s the best you can do?

Do you ever think confusion is a good thing? Do you know confusion is the portion of trailblazers? I don’t know about you, I know my best ideas have often come on the heels of skull puncturing confusion. Heck, who wants children that never argue anyway?

Is it not this children who grow up and say: But that is the way it has always been done? I have a feeling most people who grow up to become people worth anything could not exactly have been the never arguing child who learnt merely to read and write without ceremony. The Read and Write here is not even about writing or reading anything original. Child, “A” is for the Apples whose tree does not grow in your backyard... “Y” is for Yoyo... The teacher probably does not even know what a Yoyo is. We attempt comprehension passages. The teachers answer is always the correct one: Why didn’t Obi wake up early? He did not wake up early because he went to bed late. Could it be possible he did not wake up early because he did not feel like? Because he was ill? Could it be a learning opportunity if people are encouraged to have their imaginations soar? Could it? Really, could it?

As a people, do we need to go “astray” more often? Is going “astray” always to mean one is in the wrong? Do we, well, need to be less well-behaved? Perhaps, more confused?