Recently, one thought has been popping up in my mind repeatedly. And it happens at all sorts of time – when driving, when walking, even when talking.
Not that I’m complaining though. In my somewhat routine life, I tend to forget a very important thing, maybe, even the most important thing. But I’m glad that these days, the thought has been staying fresh in my memory through repetition.
And that thought is:
Consider this: You are chatting in a group, and discussion veers towards a certain person X. Specifically, towards his attitude towards money.
The group thinks that X is a miser, stingy with his money. He doesn’t buy things that he should, and that he can easily afford. But, in your heart, you think that X’s behavior is more cautionary than stingy, that he is careful with his money, which is a totally fine thing to do. And let’s assume that you think so because you have a similar attitude towards money as X; you would do the same in his place.
At this point, suppose the group asks for your opinion on the topic of X and his money; what you would do if you were in his place. What do you say now?
I find this quote from E. E. Cummings to be very true.
We always have an opinion on everything. Even if a random person, whom we are meeting for the first time, were to appear in front of us, and ask for some advice, we would definitely have something for him (even though we may not give that advice to him out of politeness or political correctness, but our minds will definitely think of something for him).
This works the other way too. Everyone has some opinion about how we, ourselves, are, and how we ought to be. That includes how we talk, our body language, our sense of dressing, our lack of knowledge about something, etc. People always have something that they want to tell us.
And this is not always with of a sense of condescension or contempt. Sometimes, people genuinely want what’s best for us. Like your family or friends. They’ll share their knowledge or opinion in the hope that it will make us better, prevent us from making certain mistakes, etc.
But, irrespective of the intentions, the ultimate effect on a person is that everyone tries to make the person be somebody else, according to what they think is best. But as the person leading that life, one has their own idea about how to lead their own life.
The result is that one has to deal with too many opinions, some their own, and some from different people. These opinions are often in conflict with each other, and one may easily be confused as to which one to take into consideration, and which to ignore.
To whom do you listen? To yourself or to those around you? Who’s to say who will be right? When faced with a choice, say you are thinking of going for option #1, but everyone around you suggests you take option #2. And say, after a great deal of thinking over the options, considering the arguments that others made for option #2, you do end up going for option #2, who made that decision? Did you or did they?
And even if you do take option #1 (your own original choice), suppose that turns out wrong (everyone makes mistakes and wrong decisions sometime in life). When the next time you have to make a choice again, and when again, the others have certain opinions different from your own, whom do you listen to?
These are not easy questions to answer. To make decisions that are truly one’s “own”, one needs a great level of self-awareness and courage.
Self-awareness, so that one can objectively decide what one’s own thoughts are, without getting them mixed up with the plethora of thoughts from others that one will, undoubtedly, be bombarded with.
And courage, because that’s what one needs to stick to one’s own convictions, even in the face of a 100 people telling them that they are wrong. And specially, when one has actually been wrong in the past. A mistake, in the past, in a totally different scenario, doesn’t mean that one will make another in the current scenario. But those other people won’t miss a beat in telling you that you were wrong before (when you hadn’t listened to them), and that you should listen to them now if you don’t want to be wrong again.
In such a complex mix, it is a real challenge, the hardest even, to maintain a clear vision of who you are. So, yes, I agree:
The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else.
– E. E. Cummings
Today I share with you another gem: Neil Gaiman‘s commencement speech to the University of the Arts, class of 2012, delivered on May 17th, 2012.
This is one of the best speeches I’ve heard. It connected with me. As someone who’s trying his hand at some form of creativity or art, this speech really spoke to me (pun intended).
Irrespective of whether you are an artist or not, I strongly recommend that you watch this video. Or, if you prefer the written word, you can read the transcript of this speech here.
Not to dissuade you from watching the entire video (which I can’t stress enough that you should do), here’s a brief idea of the points he touches upon:
Still in shock by the horrific tragedy in Las Vegas yesterday. What is the world coming to today? What moves a man to do such a thing? Innocents. Children. The shooter wasn’t targeting anyone in the crowd. Indiscriminate killing, just for the sake of killing? Why? What’s the point? Even animals don’t kill without a reason. Has man descended even below the level of animals now?
From initial reports, nothing stands out about the murderer or why he would do such a thing – he was a millionaire, had family, had a life, wasn’t suffering from any mental illnesses. Nothing. Yet, he carried out one of the most inhumane acts imaginable. Why?
If you, dear regular visitor to this blog (do you even exist?!), were wondering where I’ve been for the past few weeks – I was visiting the US of A. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to be precise. And with all that’s been going on in the country, I was…I wouldn’t say concerned…but I was curious to see what the environment would be like now. I’ve been to Pittsburgh before as well, and it’s always been a pleasure. So, I wanted to see if anything had changed.
Although my trip went as well as could’ve been expected, it is in this context that I came across the following sign outside one of the houses:
I wish I had a better quality image. But if you look closely enough, you’ll see the message repeated in multiple languages (I understood only one, but I’m assuming that’s what the others are conveying too).
The above sign caught my fancy immediately. I was once again reminded of the power of words. So much said in so few words.
The above quote has perhaps never been more relevant than today. In the age of continuous media propaganda, where it’s difficult to make sense of what is true and what isn’t, it would do us good to remember this. We should think twice before blindly believing whatever bullshit we are fed.
The thing with having false notions about our environment is that it biases us against the truth. Once we think we know something, when information to the contrary presents itself, we try to distort that information to fit in with our preconceived views. This leads to more confusion and moves us further away from the truth.
It also leads to frustration and animosity, because we are continuously faced with opposing views that require efforts to accommodate to our world-view, and sometimes, because of such a continuous onslaught, we might get a feeling of antagonism from those around us, when they actually may only be trying to tell us the truth.
That’s why I think it’s important that not only do we do our best not to get seduced by wrong beliefs, but also that we remember that no matter what we believe, there’s always a possibility that it may not be the most accurate picture of the truth, and a better explanation of the facts could still be out there.
It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.
– Thomas Jefferson
So, there’s this artist that I follow online. I think he’s good with his “art” (web comics). However, some time back, I came across some of his views on certain topics, and I found myself disagreeing (sometimes, quite strongly) with a few of those.
This made me wonder if I should continue visiting his website for the comics, and thereby, encouraging him (in an indirect way). The comics, BTW, are totally independent of his views that I had objections to.
And I realised, this is not just about this particular artist and his art. It’s a common issue that we face each day of our lives. We have all heard of brilliant artists and other celebrities indulging in drugs, violent and racist behavior, crime, etc. We have leaders talking bullshit, organisations flouting norms, and closer home, we even have friends and family members, with whom conversations about certain topics invariably end up in arguments.
These are not ideal situations to be confronted with. But what do we do in such cases? Do we continue engaging with such people?
We have all heard the word “freedom”. One might define it as the ability to move around freely, to be able to say and do things one wants (assuming no rules or laws are being broken by such things). If asked if they are free, most of us would probably say that we indeed are.
However, apart from the physical manifestations of freedom, I think the mental aspects of it are equally as important, if not more. To be truly free, I think one must have freedom from fear, experience, conditioning, self, and knowledge.
Let’s talk about each of them and see why they are important, and how we can deal with them.
Came across this article the other day in the newspaper. Have to say, the author, Amulya Gopalakrishnan, has made a very acute observation into human behaviour here. And she’s done a great job putting those thoughts into words.
The gist of the post, which I strongly encourage you to check out in detail, is that there’s only so much that we can do to convince people who already have quite strong convictions about the things that they believe in. They may be wrong, and you can provide all the facts and proofs in the world, but it’s unlikely that any of that will have any significant impact in changing those people’s thoughts.
Instead, the author suggests a different approach:
We all protect our identities; to detach a belief from a person, one needs to sever the link between the attitude and the holder’s self-image. We need to tell the story differently. Point-scoring does the opposite, it makes people descend further into their trenches.
Do check out the complete article here.
Echoes In The Ether 