Tagore Essay

            What is the meaning of life? What is your purpose on this earth? I believe that the answer to these contemplative questions lies in the poem by Rabindranath Tagore, “Life’s aspirations come in the guise of children.” This poem has manifold interpretations and meanings but the most direct is that children are, though sometimes looked over, the only way a piece of you can live on forever.

            In the world of science, to create life is the main goal of most animals; to live and survive and reproduce. That is how the phenomena of life is set up to sustain itself. This correlates to the poem because although people may not realize it, they will come to a point in which they see raising a child as a great dream or goal. Although not all people will achieve this ancient dream, without a vast majority of people realizing it the human race would have ended long, long ago.

When you find yourself doing things like studying hard to get into college or settling down from a adventurous life into a stable, happy one think about your motives. Are you going to college to make more money? But why? Maybe the reason is that you want to use that money so that your children can grow up in a good neighborhood, unlike the one you did. Or maybe you realize that the reason is you want to set a good example for future generations, to make them see that they also can achieve.

            Children are a map of there parents. No matter how big or small, parents will leave an impression upon them, and people find themselves taking great pride in these miniature copies of themselves. I know because I am one. My parents were very happy whenever I brought some an A on a test or even more recent examples, such as getting into honors classes. If I was a parent I would want my child to go even further than I did, to take chances that I may have been to timid too, to bring honor to our family name, and there to my own self.

            Another interpretation of the poem is that of simplicity and innocence of childhood. When you are young, there is nothing stopping you, no dream is too far, no aspiration too far-fetched. You can be an astronaut or a doctor, or even the president. But as some people become older, it seems that they begin to accept personal limitations. Perhaps what the author of the poem meant was that searching your childhood dreams could give you a view into what you truly want for yourself.

            These are all different perceptions of the author’s meaning behind the poem. Perhaps there are more, but the beauty of poetry is in what a given poem means to the reader. Without that personal understanding it is naught but mere words on a paper.