Is the universe a friendly place?

“A child-honoring culture would be one in which a children first value system drives policymaking. We need to put our children at the heart of a compassion revolution that sweeps the world”

Raffi Cavoukian

Once, Albert Einstein, the theoretical physicist, was asked by a journalist: “Professor Einstein if you had only one question about this universe, what would that question be?” We expected this question to be a really intellectual question, something that demanded some kind of academic knowledge, but instead, he asked: Is the universe friendly? He then explained that if we the humans decided that the universe was an unfriendly place, we would use all of the tools we have developed as a society to destroy every single thing that we believed was unfriendly, if we decided that the universe was nor friendly nor unfriendly we would think that we were not involved in the universe attitude towards us and for instance we would expect nothing but randomness, but instead if we decided that the universe was a friendly place, we would make use of the tools we have developed as a society to understand the universe and also to give a sense and a meaning to our existence. According to the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, this might be the first question that each one of the humans asks when we are born: is this a friendly place, is this a hostile environment?

In the first years of human existence the society is responsible to show each of the new individuals that this world is a friendly place, furthermore, each one of the members of the society has a responsibility in the nourishing of each baby. According to many studies that can be seen in the book Infant Research and Adult Treatment: Co-constructing Interactions, babies rate their existence according to the effect they have on adults. Babies experiment with world during their first three years of live. Andrew N. Meltzoff, Co-Director of the Institute for learning and brain sciences, explains how babies learn best and first for the people around them “Babies might have a very abstract face in mind, but they have a pattern in their mind that draws them to other people, and they have the immediate thought “that thing out there is like me, it moves like me, it behaves like me, subsequently I am very interest in that”" (Meltzoff.A, 2016) Babies need us as a community of the same species; they need us to imitate us, to learn from us and to value their existence by our judgement. What would happen if we make them think that the universe is not a friendly place? They would have useless fear, they would not be courageous, but instead, they would choose not to interact with this unfriendly place.

Even though nature vs. nurture debate is always open, we cannot deny the fact that humans are strongly formed in their first years of life. As stated by Jack P. Shonkoff “Every second babies are making between 700 and a 1000 new connections among brain cells. That is taking in all kinds of experiences: physical interactions, baby’s sensations, what a baby hears, what a baby sees.” Of every interaction with humans depends on how much connections a baby can make.

If we continue to think that only parents are responsible for a child development we are then making a huge mistake. It is true that active and present parents nourish babies that are more willing to grow, have expectations and dreams contrary of parents that are not present during the first infancy of their kids; nevertheless every single person that can interact with a newborn can change their expectancies, because babies are willing to share knowledge with each person that interacts with them, that respond to their multiple questions, that incentive their illusions and imagination; babies that interact with people that give them the affection they need to grow up will often grow thinking that a universe is a friendly place. “Guaranty that children begging their lives in a good situation is crucial to forging pacific, prosper and creative societies and the point which marks the difference are the people present in the babies lives” (Feigelson. M, 2016).

Bibliografía:

1. The Begining of Life The Series. (2016). [video] Directed by R. Estela. Sao Paulo: Estella Renner.

2. Bernard van Leer Foundation. (2016). Estreno oficial del documental The Beginning of Life - Bernard van Leer Foundation. [online] Available at: https://bernardvanleer.org/es/news/estreno-oficial-del-documental-beginning-life/ [Accessed 22 Jun. 2018].

3. Beebe, B. and Lachmann, F. (2015). Infant research and adult treatment. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.

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