Making sense of Einstein and chickens

A CHARMING letter from Albert Einstein to students at a college in Brazil has come to light after 65 years. Translated from the original German it reads: “Thinking is to man what flying is to birds. Don’t follow the example of the chicken when you could be a lark.” The college’s head said: “Einstein affirms that knowledge is something that constitutes what it is to be human.” I disagree.

Presumptuous though I undoubtedly am, I suggest that Einstein wasn’t referring to knowledge but to questioning the stuff you think you know and querying life’s “givens”.

As an Einstein interpreter of no repute whatsoever I think the great man was essentially saying, it isn’t what you think you know, but how deeply you question the knowledge you are supposed to have. Unless, of course, you prefer to be a chicken. AT THE nail bar for an hour and a half I watched a mother ignore her son ( aged two years and three months) for the duration. She gazed fixedly at her phone, made calls, even asked the owners if they had wi- fi.

The child amused himself with good humour for a while, then tried calling “Mama”. Mama was too engrossed with her emails to reply. A cautionary tale, or simply modern parenting?