Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Invictus

Why does life become so hard sometimes?

It feels like you’re always running towards this great something that will bring you happiness and personal satisfaction until the end of time. So every future action of yours feels like it should be motivated towards this great something which will fulfill you. Unfortunately, there is some higher rule which has somehow decided that only a select few can be awarded with this great big something and the basic prerequisites for this great something are having an excellent education, playing you cards right, having a good job of course because without that the world would just crumble and fall away.
And, if ever in life, for even a minute, you get this feeling that what you’re doing isn’t leading you to this great big something then it feels like the whole world is closing in on you, its like you are going to be a big fat failure because you will not have a wonderful job and get a fat paycheck to service your selfish needs and make you a perfect person. Why is everything so hard all the time? Why can’t we just be happy and experience life? It doesn’t seem fair that we have to be running towards something eternally – yes, some things need to be done – studying, working etc. but how can they become the very foreground for your existence, why should they control who you are and how you feel. If you love to sing, just sing... why worry if that’s cutting into your time of making yourself a better asset for the corporate world so some MNC or big conglomerate will hire you and give you a large paycheck for doing a job you secretly hate and wouldn’t be in if it weren’t for the money.

What’s worse is competition. You see somebody who’s made a little more money than you in a shorter period of time, somebody who’s done something a little more exciting and immediately the world comes crashing down, you feel that constriction in your chest, the panic sets in and al of a sudden you feel worthless, because the other person’s success just reminds you of your blinding failure. Ah, the woes of humanity. Pathetic as we are, we are perpetually held in this trap of the world, we don’t just live for ourselves and our loved ones. We live more for our boss, our teachers, the people we hate because they’re better than us, or so we think.
We’re all just caged in this cycle of impressing others and fulfilling this pre-existing mould of what’s right and what’s good. But what’s the point in life? Why waste our lives living it for somebody else. Every moment is gone when we blink it away worrying or just pointlessly working on something we hate.

If only there could be a way to exit this cage and this cycle and be completely free of it. Invictus – ‘I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul.’

2 comments:

Abhishek said...

Ok. I can see how this works at the school level, at the being-parented around level... but doesn't the fact that we've reached a place where we're making our own decision on what we learn and what we want to do and yes, we need to subvert a large part of our energies and creativity to a inflexible structures and teachers, bosses etc., but really, aren't those steps to gaining a sort of creative and professional freedom that is beyond the simplicity of life. Man has rarely exercised it's inherent option of simplicity, opting for sophistication and further complexity. It's in our genes, after all.

So would you say that our very "enjoyment" and "being ourselves" is a process of simplicity with no higher aspiration to reach a sophisticated level of freedom and creative genius ? Even singing cannot be restricted to sheer simplicity, if you love it enough, you will achieve complexity. And at the end of it all, it will mould a structure in society. I know you have these moods, but I simply don't see how working and learning when you have a choice are a matter of mindlessness.

Unless, of course, you no longer enjoy what you are learning... and I doubt it.

spud said...

Well, first of all, Abhi, you have completely misinterpret the essence of the blog. Secondly, the point is not about complexity.

It is about the fact that we have to go through these "steps to gaining a sort of creative and professional freedom that is beyond the simplicity of life"

My point is, we shouldn't have to. It should be inherent and not be so rigid. Its fabulous that you have been able to attain a level where you no longer need to follow any system, but where I come from and as far as I've seen, its all about playing your cards right. Every final goal has a set of required steps to follow with some freedom this way or that. But its no longer based on pure interest, merit etc.

Maybe the fact that humanity civilized is to blame for it, but the fact is, we live in a constrained world with very very limited options and we sit and thank our stars that we're better off than our grandparents because we can marry who we want!

But that is not how it needs to be and that is the point, NOT whatever you said.

And btw, pre-civilization man, was beyond simple.