I am THINKING... surprisingly I have been doing it continuously for last 26 years or so -16 hours a day.
In fact I am sometimes frustrated by incessant flow of thoughts, but by and large, I have been unconscious about the fact that for all this whale of time, I have been THINKING...
Very common, ain't it?
Still odd, ain't it?
Anyway right now I am seriously ambushed by hundreds of lively thoughts dying to be immortalized in written words.
And the choice is 'CHOICE'.
Don't you think Choice is the greatest power we have?
Choice to live my own life my own way - choice to eat, to not eat, to drink or not to, to sleep and attend morning lecture or finish the second half of the movie, to blog or not... (Don't be too hopeful, I am not done with the torture yet)
But our society systematically strives to turn most of our choices into its own.Let's take a basic example.
For whole of our life we are trained to increase the probability of longer lifespan...eat healthy, don't drink, don't smoke, dont delve into drugs,don't drive rash, don't catch a running train, stay away from goons and police, don't kick street dogs etc.
Now that our long term existence in society is assured of, the next thing is to ensure that u follow the set convention of steady rise in status. Hence, the pressure to study, to get a good job, to study more to get a better job, to work like dog to get a hike, to get a wife(or husband for fairer sex), to get a home etc.
These things are hammered so hard into our minds, that we almost forget, we have got CHOICE!!!
I got the choice of running onto a speeding merc on marine drive.
I got the choice of kicking a passer-by biker on street ( my eternal fantasy ).
I got the choice of getting up tomorrow morning and catching a train to nowhere.
OR I got the choice to follow the pre-programmed routine in my head.
Who else can stop me, but me? Who else can push me, but me?
The point is, it doesn't matter whether you continue to live the same life or do some crazy stuff,but it should be a conscious choice on ur part and not an automatic one.
Personally, the knowledge that "turning into a raging maniac is just one whim away" always amuses and comforts me :)
Recently I have been thinking about a fantastic alternative way of life...more on it, later...
I also want to write more about how human society is a self sustaining, perpetrating, automatically stabilizing and evolving mechanism that it is almost a whole single living being.
I think it is the miracle of the miracles!!!
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Enjoyable read. I remember your "Road Rash" fantasy.
ReplyDeleteI loved the thought "...turning into a raging maniac is just one whim away...".
The miracle is not that it sustains, but that it sustains despite some people choosing to act on this whim, and others choosing to ignore it. :)
Right....just like the body sustains despite some cells rotting away.
ReplyDeleteLOL..
ReplyDeleteThe best part - "kicking a biker" and "turning into a raging maniac is just one whim away"
The entire system is all about making you a conformist right from the moment you enter the school - "Stand in line; wear proper socks".
People don't like their beliefs and assumptions being questioned; a babu or politician does not like his actions being questioned.
Even if you see in our B. Tech. class, students used to hate professors like Pandya and Shiv who exhorted them for not questioning the assumptions . What you don't understand, you either fear or you associate aura with it - Pandya vs Shiv.
"What you don't understand, you either fear or you associate aura with it"...deep and insightful
ReplyDeleteNaissssss. The problem comes when we associate freedom with amount of choice esp consumer ones. We are more "free-er" if we have more shampoos to choose in the supermarket well more choice leads to frustration also :D
ReplyDeleteSociety tends to create patterns of behavior, those who fit are in, those who are not are kept out or kept locked. And school system is exactly that. It tries to inculcate the industrial worth ethics: dress code, discipline, strict adherence to authority, ability to uncritically follow instructions, ability to repeatedly perform a specified set of task or regurgitate previously given material.
Very true Amit.
ReplyDeleteAnd let me tell you, you are not alone who thinks so. Many times these whimsical thoughts come to our mind, but the next moment we delete them because of our concious mind.
I think this process of deleting the whimsical thoughts gets diluted in the maniacs and thats why turn into maniacs.