Thistledown

I remember when I was about 10 years old, me and a group of my friends held the belief that thistledown is conscious, and that the seed in the middle of it is actually a tiny brain. We also believed that there's a secret name which, if you call the thistledown by, will make it fly into your hand. I remember us running after the thistledown in the street, each yelling the name he or she recently learned from our all-knowing parents, and the smile on the face of whoever was lucky enough to be facing the slight breeze which none of us could feel. Each time we thought we figured out the name, only to be disappointed a couple of hours or a couple of days later. We'd go back home, thinking of what possibly could have gone wrong: "I'm sure that's what dad told me to call it, he couldn't be wrong....maybe I need to say it louder, or slower, or maybe there's some other thing I need to do that he forgot to tell me about...". As time passed by, we grew out of our weird belief and in retrospect, each of us smiles at our childishly naive thoughts....

It's funny how many people never grow out of their own naive beliefs, and spend their lives chasing a non-existent secret....