A few of my friends have told me lately about how having a child is the best thing that can ever happen to them. Some even felt that having children is their greatest achievement in life.

It is very hard to understand this phenomenon for a person of the mind, especially those that are yet to be parents. A calculative mind is all about time and trade. How much time is required? How much do I need to give? What will I get back? Is it worth it?

It is difficult to enjoy parenthood for one that thinks too much. He or she might not even want to have a child in the first place. The truth is that you will be giving for a very long time and there is no guarantee that you will get anything in return from the child. Not many people understand that the child comes through you and not from you. They don’t really belong to you in the first place. Caring for a child is like a job with heavy responsibilities and no wages, actually you would have to pay from your pocket once you get the job. If it is a career, you would be insane to apply for a job like that.

Why then is having children the best thing that can happen to someone’s life?

Only a person of love can understand. A person of love doesn’t see the returns in monetary or time value. He or she sees the returns from the heart and the heart is always illogical. The heart sees the returns in the form of a smile, the growth and the joy of a child. It couldn’t resist protecting that small fragile body even at the cost of one’s life. How would a self-preservative mind understand this willingness to sacrifice? There seems to be no logic to it.

Doing photography is also similar in certain ways. For many of us, we might not even get back half of what we put into our crafts. Why do we still continue to put in the dedication, the time, the money, the sweat, so that we can continue to give and share? It takes a great toll on us and yet we drag out our heavy gear and head out for sunrise early in the wee hours. The mind cannot comprehend this madness and it burns us out on many occasions.

When we stand in front of a magnificent sunrise and hear the waves crash, or when we come eye to eye with an exotic being of nature. Something magical happens—it makes our heart sing. The mind drops when we are mesmerized by the beauty of it all. When thinking stops, awareness arises. This awareness of our connection to the world makes us feel alive. That is why we inevitably continue to create…we want to share that aliveness with others. In other words, we want to share the love and that love can only be found when the mind is not. How then can anything we do be logical if the mind is not there but the heart is?