DISCLAIMER : The following..uh..(write up...article..rant......) thing is very cynical and was conceptualised in a moment of extreme frustration and disgust.... Feelings like these often flare up arbitrarily...with no obvious reason...Something snaps and the facade of the calm,smiling,sophisticated person that you pretend to be, maybe even thought you were suddenly falls away...leaving you angry, disgusted,ashamed at yourself....Then you think, analyse, reason and go looking for the facade....telling yourself never to be spontantaneous or genuine ( couldn't find a thrid adjective here, sorry !! :P) ever again....At least it happens to me...And...like most things...these feelings are considered to be a sign of extreme weakness by some and that of extreme moral strength by others....After the moment has passed i thought about it and realised that things weren't as bad as i had once imagined them to be...but still felt that those thoughts were true enough to deserve lasting (though how lasting i cannot say !!) mention....so here goes...optimists beware...you have been warned...
My literature (or rather 'approaches to literature' as he would prefer to be called..and i understand fully and sympathise with him on that point) prof. once mentioned in class that someone or the other had said that all our life's a drama...it's a role we're playing..fully mindful of the audience and their reactions.....( and no..it's not'All world's a stage' that's by shakespeare and i know that.... XP)And i was like...was he the one they executed....( i mean..obviously i didn't say that but..i definitely thought that..( actually i didn't even think that..but hey..it's a really cool thing to say..!))And that statement really hit me....Not because it was something new..because such ideas..(of intense anger at the world and self righteousness and blah blah blah..) frequently occupy my mind...(self righteousness...blah blah blah indeed !!!) and not because it was a very smart way of putting it....but because sometimes....you have a large bloody pile of dynamite and all it takes is some small stupid spark...And it's happened with me several times... ideas and feelings that have been in you for a long time come bursting out as reactions to very strange and extremely arbitrary incidents....And then there's no wondering....'how the hell ?' but only the boom...Thoughts, feelings and ideas come rushing at you and you feel irrationally sad or happy or scared or ..as in this case...(and i think i said this before :P) angry, disgusted and ashamed......
(MS: If people accuse me of being verbose.....i plead guilty.. and it's fun...I mean i could write everything that i want to say about an idea in one sentence which would run to about 3-4 lines...but without the analogies and the rants and the infinite brackets and the :P's.... it's no fun....don't you agree ??!)
Well now that i've finished digressing ...(at least for now) i'll get back to what i was really emotional and all 'angry,disgusted and ashamed' about (was being the operative word... obviously !!)It's this world...and the way it's turned out....Your always playing a character...judging the reactions of others, changing your story...adding a bit to it, trimming some,lopping some off.....Sweet talking, fake laughing, up sucking (!!) and generally behaving in a way that would dry up an amazed(awestruck rather..) crocodile's tears.... And that's just the dark side....Every moment we say something we're thinking about how people would judge us based on what we just said....they're thinking the same..only they're also thinking about how their judgements would represent their biases and prejudices ..and how they would wish to appear before the world( some biases are cool you see...) We think about what we appear to be rather than what we are and what we should be( and yes..i do believe that there is some idea..foggy(very very...) though it may be...of an ideal we should strive to attain..)And this stunts all personal development..We live our entire lives as mere puppets in the hands of society..which in essence is the majority ( which is stupid and easily led (hint hint !!))and also largely dependent on luck..( The right or wrong set of circumstances can make or break the popularity of an idea or a movement)) and we work towards goals that society sets for us, do things that society decides are right for us and generally become robots...only (and this is doubly worse) we think that we have free will....Our mind works on an algorithm that judges the reactions to our behaviour and modifies them to conform...(nowadays it is believed (and this may be true..that rebellion is the new conformity..but that's just as bad...)
All in all we end up living not as ourselves but what the world wants us to be.....Most of our relationships are not genuine...they're means to an end...the ultimate end...recognition and approval, not by any person in particular , but by the world in general....And genuine relationships are important ..rather essential for a person's true development....And by true genuine relationships i do not mean those relationships where there is no criticism whatsoever of the other but rather where one's only reason for saying a thing is that he/she actually believes it.....And how do you decide who you can be genuine with..Well that's easy (or not..) If you are sure that the other person values genuinity (or genuineness or whatever !) then you can be genuine with him...But again, you will realise that this definition is recursive...You can be genuine if the other person wants to be genuine which in turn will happen if he knows that you want to be genuine and so on....ad infinitum...But generally things are much easier..Some rebellious (or rather non conforming..whatever that may be !) ideas ...when voiced aloud in a seemingly temporary loss of reason will be from a person who still craves genuinity in his life and there you have it... you're off....
A relationship where both participants speak their mind freely knowing that it's one person judging them...not a horde..knowing that whatever prejudices and biases that person my have...they can be argued against, for they are one man's prejudices and not a society's 'etched in stone' 'principles'....(first time..doesn't look to pretty ..but it was necessary.. !)And according to me..Marriage serves this purpose excellently , almost as if it were designed for this...Since in normal society you can't be genuine all the time and even if you're with a person with whom you do share a genuine rapport with but in the company of others you may have to say things that you would not ordinarily..but if you are alone at any time with that person you can explain things to him/her....and this particular requirement is satisfied by marriage, by design ....Therefore your best chance at a tailormade 'as perfect as it can get' genuine relationship is marriage..So choose wisely....
PS: I wanted to write another midscript but it would have been a PMS (!!! :P)
PPS: Of course, in any relationship intellectual compatiblity to some extent is essential but I'm talking about other, hidden requirements...
PPPS: Every time i wrote the word 'relationship' i felt that it would be misconstrued ....so don't !
PPPPS: IIT ( or rather any residential educational program) is an awesome breeding ground (lol) for genuine relationships (oops ...) but it doesn't last forever...People try...but the insti wised up...!!!!
PPPPPS: Oh..and yeah...It's been a long time since i posted blah blah..been busy..blah blah
PPPPPPS: :P !!
So true! Agree with everything 110%
ReplyDeleteAfter reading what you've written, a thought that just came to mind was.........I wonder how many masks one human being wears during the course of his lifetime!!!......Why is it easier to be someone we're not, than to be ourselves???........Just something that your post made me think about.
ReplyDeleteNice post Sumedh, as always. Reading your blog after a long gap. Always great to catch up with your writing.
-Ms. Lynette