As usual...I am writing something....but instead of getting to the point directly...i love to beat around the bush...wander here and there....blow a little bubblegum balloon now and then.....then maybe try to lick my elbow (and i swear ...i have once licked ketchup off it...) ..flex my muscles a bit and suck my tummy in...and put on a face that makes me look constipated and rather like Solomon grundy (http://marvel.com/ Awesome site) than Superman.......and then sometimes i ease into the topic rather elegantly....and sometimes i just come straight out and break the fourth wall (or it's literary analogue....) and introduce the topic..Sometimes i am actually confused about what my topic will be ...and am actually stalling....and thinking at the same time...about what i should write....And actually that's what life is....
(:P)What are we doing with our lives...I mean does anyone have even the slightest idea....or are we just 'err'ing and 'hmmm'ing and waiting for the recess bell to ring ?? I mean, sure, we have goals and stuff...I wanna be rich or famous or change the world ( among the most ambitious and wholesome...) ...But does anyone ever really think about when he will be on his deathbed thinking...."What the hell...Why ?"..." Why did i just go through life...and Why did i just do all that stuff ...Most of it would've made no sense even then, even if i had tried to think about it...."...I mean i'm not talking about very 'high brow' ( and according to me ..more or less meaningless) stuff like 'Why are we here?' ...but rather.... about how we life on a very small scale....making choices that seem right at the time..but are orthogonal or sometimes anti parallel( couldn't help it :P ) to what our final aim is....We should really think about what we want to do ...with life....not in life...but what would be a near perfect scenario that we could live in indefinitely.....Of course what we want to do may change...but our decisions at each point of time ( wait for it... wait for it....) should leave us pointing in the direction of our instantaneous life goal vector ( !!!!! :P)
I know myself that my life goal has changed several times...oscillating, though not simple harmonically, between 3-4 options...but i always make decisions keeping it in mind...And it's worked for me...Of course the relation may not be causal...But at least ill be more like, " I'm dumb !", on my deathbed( at worst) rather than " What the f**k"....(At best)......
Going into the specifics...
A lot of people do a lot of stuff just because it's cool, or because everyone's doing it.....All their lives..all their decisions are made on the basis of social norms..While this may be a safe route in some cases ( and sometimes that's even the motive) many times people just want to be accepted by everyone..they want to be part of a group....I see obvious examples of this everyday and there are definitely others that are subtler...."Why ?" Once....Ask yourself this....How many people out of those are such that you actually care about their opinion..Why is it that if 200 fools get together....they become some super intelligent entity ?....Why do we let out lives be dictated by people who have no stake in it ? We want to play it safe...and we want assurance and acceptance..For once..grow a pair.....Do what YOU think is right ....
I remember reading in 'Chicken soup for a soul' about this kid who once made fun of a girl that other kids always used to make fun of 'cause she used to wear old fashioned clothes..And he says how he regrets to this day,that he did it..In fact...'The Chicken Soup' series has many examples of such confessions where people have regretted stuff they did long ago due to societal pressure.....In this case the result...was a (painful) twinge of regret about not having done the right thing...but in some cases it will be about life changing decisions...and that...is something you do not want to regret......
PS: 'Conformity Is A Disease And Rebellion Is The Cure': I once had a Tshirt that said this..At the time i wore it cause it was anti-establishment and cool...( sigh...the irony...) but now....well...i wish i still had it...
PPS: By the way...i remember asking if my posts were too preachy and pedantic....Yup..they are !!!!
PPPS: Chicken soup is Awesome !!!( both for the stomach and the soul !)
PPPPS: Re: the title...Remember...'Tell me why',' More tell me why','Still more tell me why','Here's more tell me why' and the like.....Well....stay tuned :P
Great post.
ReplyDelete~Kendra
Going with the flow.....Doing what the world wants us to........Fitting in!........I think a lot of times, we human beings do things just to please someone else(family, friends, society in general). In the bargain, we end up displeasing the one person we should be most concerned about.....'Ourselves'.
ReplyDeleteAlthough selfishness is not a quality that one should recommend, I sometimes do think that when it's a question of 'my own life' and the direction 'I' am heading in, it wouldn't be too wrong to just think about 'what I want', instead of what the world expects me to think and act.
Conformity, very often can lead us to break our own hearts and while we're so concerned about pleasing the world, we often end up doing a grave wrong towards ourselves.I wish more people thought about this before they took major steps in life.
A very, very thought-provoking post Sumedh. As always, I love it.
-Ms. Lynette