Hide and Seek

It doesn't pay to be too good at hiding.

I remember when I was a kid playing hide and seek with my friends. I'd run off to find the ultimate hiding place, find an absolute belter, hunker myself down and then wait... and wait... and wait... After a few minutes I'd poke my head out to see if anyone was coming. Maybe there's been a sudden mass alien abduction, I'd think, or the rapture and I've been left behind, or, worst of all, maybe they've all conceded to my hiding genius, given up and gone off to play football instead! I'd have a sudden panic, prise myself out of my superior hiding hole and then slink off to check whether any of my fanciful ideas were true (sadly, I think, on more than one occasion at least one of them was). It strikes me now, as a somewhat grown up, that hide and seek is a mightily peculiar game. Not so much in the seeking, that's pretty straightforward and, it seems, ultimately dependent on just how committed you are to the cause, but hiding is a much more ambiguous kettle of fish. You need to strike the sublime balance of having a good enough hiding place to seem like you're at least putting in an effort and not too good an escape as to run the risk of being completely forgotten. Because at the end of the day we all want to be found (but not too easily!). That's the key to it all really: it's not the hiding or the seeking that's important to us, it's the finding.

My daughter, who's currently in the wonderful twos, loves to hide. 'Hide for your life!' she'll shout as she hears the solemn tread of mummy's feet on the stairs and she'll dive under the nearest duvet dragging you with her. She'll then giggle and chatter until mummy comes along and 'finds' her and probably stay under the duvet for another fifteen minutes until she's really, finally done with hiding. But, again, it's not really the hiding that matters to her, it's the hiding with daddy, or the hiding with mummy, or the being found bit, that really gets her excited.

As you may have gathered, I've been thinking a lot about hiding today and have realised that I do far more of it than is entirely healthy. Not so much hiding in tight, dark spaces - that gets increasing less appealing the older and less flexible I get - but more hiding from life: with all it's difficult decisions and challenging situations that bring struggle but ultimately make everything more interesting. As in the example from my childhood above, if you hide too well sometimes you can miss out on something better (and by that I don't mean an alien abduction). All of this thinking throws out lots of questions. How do I hide? Why do I hide? And, in the end, does all this hiding prevent me from finding something great or stop me being found by someone or something that really matters? Food for thought I think.

No, it doesn't pay to be too good at hiding.

Anyway, that's enough rambling for another week.

Have a great one.