July 22, 2021

Luckily, the village came to their senses and decided to wait and observe. The child didn’t seem distressed, exhausted, or starving. Thanks to his skills, there was plenty of food in the nearby woods. Based on this, it was officially accepted that as long as the child continued his daily routine of exploring and finding food, they would only observe him. The villagers were not offended but intrigued by the child’s fierce determination to ignore the offered food and compassion.

Unsurprisingly, they were humble enough to justify it. Rules were rules, and it seemed that by refusing to embrace their support, the child knew and followed the rules better than anyone. But was it purely for the sake of tribal rules that this child was unwilling to blend in? Initially, when he was first spotted, they were shocked and alarmed. Later, the village passionately wished for the child to get comfortable, settle in, and start feeling at home. Deep down, they secretly wanted to adopt him. Food was meant not only to nourish and comfort but also to distract him from his daily trips to the woods, encouraging him to remain in his shelter on the border not just at night but permanently. They wanted him to adopt their behaviour and habits, to spoil him. The village wished for this without considering the consequences or how it would align with their respect for the tribe. Were they forgetting about the goodwill towards the tribe they had always maintained and demonstrated? Forgetting the child’s best interests? Perhaps, it might have been the case that the child was using his intuition to detect their indirect intentions to bond with and transform him. Alternatively, it might have been beyond the child’s abilities to recognise and respond to their love. Although this perspective seemed too simplistic: by trying to understand what this child was, they began to see what he was not. Consequently, this was when the village stopped pushing and insisting.

Nevertheless, the village still saw it as a problem that needed solving. Fortunately, they shifted their problem – solving approach to focus on theoretical reasoning, asking “why” and “how” only. Their method involved gradual developing many competing theories and deducing new insights from them. In other words, through their discussions, the village hoped to achieve a revelation or uncover a unique truth, investing all their patience and imagination in the process.