Creativity owes to moments that bestow upon us space to recall, think and feel the pain or joy of the vicissitudes of life. But in this age, when we are afflicted with the curse of more — overfed, overprotected, over-occupied — the untenanted mind has become an extinct species. More toys, more gadgets or more preoccupations have deprived us of the ability to stick to one tangible or intangible phenomenon. Abundance has usurped from us the Wordsworthian 'inward eye ... the bliss of solitude'.

In a well-known empirical study in 2018, Carly Dauch and colleagues of The University of Toledo, USA, tested the hypothesis that 'an environment with fewer toys will lead to higher quality of play for toddlers'. They found that toddlers provided with fewer toys engaged in longer durations of toy play and played with toys in a greater variety of ways. To give less is to trust more — trust their capacity to create, to cope, to find joy.

'More' is camouflaged as parental generosity, which is the depletion of parents' patience in reality. The 'more' is........

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