Applied Innocence: The Innocence that works in the Real World

Innocence is usually associated with kids, hippies and idiots. But does it have to be like that? Why must we subscribe to this untested but prevalent concept of innocence? Why must we not attempt to understand, if not live, a form of innocence that works? And not just celebrated as a piece of nostalgia by adults?

The difference between the classroom and the boardroom (this cliche is tired. Very, very tired. The only F-word it can think of is fatigue. It has crow's feet, vulture droppings, rodent shadow and human stupidity beneath its eyes. It does not even bother to educate writers anymore or inspire them to bring better idioms, metaphors, similies, smileys and other intelligencicons to life. I am sorry, I asked you to be present here, dear cliche. Try to forgive me. I succumbed here) is somewhere between the pages of a textbook and the folds of everyday mechanics. Not the IIT/JEE/black coffee cramming mechanical engineering kind of mechanics. That is a different joke. This mechanics is more the wheels, the torque, the I/O ratio, the force, the momentii (sorry, couldn't resist that. My family is Latin. No kidding. No, kidding), the pulleys and the equations of everyday negotiations. Not the deal making kind of negotiations. That too is a sub set here but the broader negotiation of conversations, people, work, relationships, back slaps, back stabs, back talks, back ends, back breaks (no, there will not be similar entertainment with the front prefix now). The casualty often, in these negotiations, is a certain something called innocence. Not the acne cream on nipples kind of innocence, mind you. That's like saying politics means lying. Only. This is a different kind of innocence. One that follows a different temporal pattern from ourselves. For instance, it would like to stay in grade school for a lot longer than we would like it to. It believes in belief - a faithless paradigm that needs to be dropped like a red hot branding iron, quickly, decisively and conclusively - when we are purported to have grown up and matured.

The deal usually in these cases is this - we feel it is a blanket paradigm. Innocence, that is. No, actually, an eiderdown quilt paradigm. Insular, protective and separatist. Black and white and covering us from the polluting tendencies of the world at large. A world at large where we are led to believe small minds reign. A wide world filled to the brim with narrowness. Yes, it is largely that. For the sake of logic (that old beast which lost favour with the Greeks and Latins and now roams free, full of history, without geography, full of tendencies, without mercy or magic) let us accept for a little while that it is so. That the world is indeed full of pollution; choked to the larynx with dangerous and delusional dust, printed on the pollen paper of avarice and that old whore called power, coughing and wheezing on the hay fever of haphazardness, limping, trudging, dragging itself towards a golden explosion that is actually made of gold wrapping paper. Let's do that. Because the premise taking shape here leans on a different pillar. So, even if the world is like the morose, mangy and mindless monochromatic megalomaniac that it is largely supposed to be, innocence need not die an euthanasic death in its clutches. And, that is where the hypothetical existence of an alternate (not alternative) stream of innocence comes into play. Not work. Play.

Pure, theoretical and pristine innocence is indeed like the aforementioned quilt - it is indeed insular, protective and fairly selfless. Works well for children. For people with an unconscious penchant for moonpaste and butterfly wings. And, the special.
But, what about innocence interrupted? What about innocence that wants to go and have a drink at the bar down the road? What about innocence that wishes to toy with the happy hemlock of heartbreak? What about innocence that is not innocent? Innocence that has not adopted naive as its family title. A different breed of innocence indeed. From a different (mutant?) stock. A separate barrel. A combination lock. What about that kind of innocence?

Is that breed of innocence not innocent? Is it something else? Maybe. But it is still innocence. With modifications? With band aid? With knowledge? But, how can innocence assume knowledge of its own existence? Isn't that antithetical? Paradoxical? Contradictory? (Two shots of happy haemoglobin up the arm of any one who can distinguish between the two. But, that's a different joke).
Cut. Break. Take five. No, take twenty five. We are still zipping up here on our thoughts.
Cut to Economics. The Milton Friedman kind. The demand supply kind. The Giffen goods kind. The curves, the graphs, the logic, the deltas, the land-labour-Kapital kind.
Cut.
Cut to Physics. No? Okay, sorry.
Cut again to Philosophy. Too dangerous? Okay.
Cut surely to Mathematics. Yes, the solace there is in figures. And, the support.
If all these streams of consciousness and knowledge have something called Pure _______ and Applied ______, then why not Innocence? Yes, innocence with a BIG eye. Innocence, with its approach, fundamentals, early schooling and practice. Innocence, with its roots, families, familiarities, origins and events. Why can there not be Pure Innocence and Applied Innocence. Innocence in vacuum, innocence in black & white, innocence suspended, innocence still waiting in the wings, innocence before being granted a liquor permit and a driving license and (not as opposed to or versus) innocence that drives through matter, innocence that is in sepia or gray, innocence in motion, innocence on the stage, innocence that can responsibly drink, drive, drink or drive, drink and drive. Innocence that has drive, desire, ambition, hunger. Innocence that wants, feeds, feels, gets its elbows stained, gets hurt, gets up, walks away, comes back, cries, punches, writes letters, sings in the rain, classifies sunsets as beautiful or beyond words, takes trips, makes love, winks at happiness, pricks balloons, looks up, wrinkles its nose, breaks wind, cracks jokes, gets cramps, finds things funny, finds things not funny, back slaps, makes mistakes, breaks glass things, trips, whistles, smokes stuff, watches TV, pays bills, runs, knocks on doors, throws stones, kicks empty cans.
In other words, innocence that lives.
In other words, Applied Innocence.
No?