There was a beautiful bungalow surrounded by a garden and a lush green lawn. One day, somebody leaves the gate open and two cute lambs slide in. Without noticing them, the Watchman closes the gate and goes away for some other work.
A small kid from the house spots those lamps playing and grazing on the lawn. He is amused. He rushes into the garden and starts playing with them. Hearing the commotion, his mother comes out and shouts, “Hey, don’t destroy the lawn, get them out”. The boy now realizes that their fun is destroying the garden. He stops playing and starts running behind the lambs to drive them out. But the gate is closed, so lambs don’t find the way out. They get scared and start bleating and jumping here and there. The boy is shouting and running behind them.
The mother, who is watching this helpless chaos, tells the boy, “Open the gate dear, from where will they go out?”
Now the boy opens the gate. Lambs hop out of the gate immediately. The boy amazedly looks at the open gate and says, “Oh! Really!!”
We all experience such “Oh! Really!!” events many times. Though the cute childhood innocence is absent now, the confused, chaotic helpless behavior is still the same. Many times, we are so engrossed in some thought or habit that we don’t realize that our mind is rotating, revolving around the same things. We don’t find the gate, though it is just there. We feel confined, suffocated, tired, lost as if all roads are blocked.
Suddenly, because of something, the gate opens and we see the path clearly. It happens due to some unrelated experience, due to a dialogue with someone, a story that we read, a meme that we come across or a film we watch, anything. But it gives us realization, an unexpected clarity to come out of the helpless situation and we say “Oh! Really!!” Such insightful moments, are called “The Aaha moments”.
***