I've always had a wild imagination, and I was always very playful and got into all sorts of trouble. I remember watching a Superman cartoon once on TV and I decided to be Superman so I 'borrowed' my mother's red dress or table cloth or whatever it was I can't remember now, and I attempted to jump from the hill behind my house in Raub. Except this was a stupid thing to do because it was a hill, with a slope. So instead of flying, I rolled down the slope and was in a right mess. Needless to say my mother chased me with a lidi broom when she saw my condition and I think I got beaten for it. Another time I climbed up a tree and was too afraid to come down, and was also too afraid to call out to my mother so I waited until my father came home from work and he had to bring me down from the tree.
When I look back on my life, excluding kindergarten, I think the first 6 years of my life were the happiest. I was always up to all sorts of mischief and experimenting with anything I can find (among others, I made a kite that wouldn't fly, a boomerang which didn't work and a sling shot which did) and for the most part, I was careful enough not to get caught by my parents. I was always in search of another adventure.
I learned from my observational skills that my older brother would never get into trouble, and that if I played with him, I would be the one who got beaten or scolded, never him. So I learned to play on my own, and to find ways of hiding what I'd been up to. I learned that the less my parents knew about what I was doing, the less trouble I got into. When my younger brother came along, he was the naughtiest boy ever, but he never bothered to hide anything from my parents, with the result that he was constantly getting into trouble with my parents. The difference was, he got into trouble for his own wrongdoing. I got into trouble not only for my own wrongdoing (which was seldom because I learnt to hide well), but for others' wrongdoing, or because my mother was in a bad mood, or just because.
So again, I learned to play on my own, far far away from my brothers - one because he could never get into any trouble, and one because he was constantly getting into trouble and dragging me into it. On hindsight, that was probably the start of my anti-social behavior.
When I look back on my life, excluding kindergarten, I think the first 6 years of my life were the happiest. I was always up to all sorts of mischief and experimenting with anything I can find (among others, I made a kite that wouldn't fly, a boomerang which didn't work and a sling shot which did) and for the most part, I was careful enough not to get caught by my parents. I was always in search of another adventure.
I learned from my observational skills that my older brother would never get into trouble, and that if I played with him, I would be the one who got beaten or scolded, never him. So I learned to play on my own, and to find ways of hiding what I'd been up to. I learned that the less my parents knew about what I was doing, the less trouble I got into. When my younger brother came along, he was the naughtiest boy ever, but he never bothered to hide anything from my parents, with the result that he was constantly getting into trouble with my parents. The difference was, he got into trouble for his own wrongdoing. I got into trouble not only for my own wrongdoing (which was seldom because I learnt to hide well), but for others' wrongdoing, or because my mother was in a bad mood, or just because.
So again, I learned to play on my own, far far away from my brothers - one because he could never get into any trouble, and one because he was constantly getting into trouble and dragging me into it. On hindsight, that was probably the start of my anti-social behavior.
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