Musings...
What shall it be today then?
Which of the myraid thoughts shall I layout for you?
Thoughts bombinate around and yet slip away before I can hold them for long enough to scrutinize and reach a rational conclusion.
Let me then put up all the questions that crop up unasked, in my mind for you to ponder over and answer where I have failed.
1.Right, wrong, good, bad, logical, illogical...who is to judge? All that I do, say, think makes perfect sense to me. Why does it seem so different then to others who witness them aghast?
2.Whose judgement should prevail?
Family - they gave birth to you, raised you, provided, food, shelter and security, gave you your very name?
Friends - they share your elation and your disappointment. Make you feel wanted, important in the world-crowd?
Spouse/Lover - has promised to be there through thick and thin. Shares your very bed, home and at times thoughts?
Yourself - wasn't this about your life? But do you really still have a say in it?
3. Is it wrong to love yourself? The Bible says Love thy neighbour as thyself what does that mean? To me it means that man (or woman) loves himself the best and must strive to love others also in the same manner. Does that mean that self-love isn't all that bad as its made out to be rather its a good thing that should be multiplied (by loving more people in the same manner)?
4. Who is this neighbour? The person who lives next door? The person who is physically next to you? Or the one who is close to your heart and perhaps soul? Who will judge? The Bible is mute.
5. Lets imagine we do succeed in this difficult feat i.e. love someone as much as we love ourselves. What kind of love shall it be? The kind of love we would want for ourselves or that which is acceptable to the beloved. Who will define?
6. Are there different kinds of love? Can my love be different from yours and yet be as true? Will you accept it? Does love need to be about lofty thoughts and noble actions? Can't it be about goofy things and foolish jokes?
7. What is love? Why do we love so easily? We seem to be loving everyone friends, colleagues, sisters, brothers, the world at large at times. Is all that really love? or do we use the term loosely to describe any and every noble, semi-noble feeling we have - care, affection, kindness, loyalty, regard, respect...
8. How can the same thing be demanding, suffocating, binding and then again amazingly, breathtakingly beautiful?
9. I dwell a lot on this word and what it means (as my blog will tell you) perhaps because like a friend pointed out I have too much of it in my life but then again is it the variety thats palatable to me? Do I have a choice?
10. Is it alright for me to tell someone that I thank you wholeheartedly for loving me but please oh! please do not expect anything in return from me? I may not be able to return even a part of the feelings you have for me. Will love give them the insight to understand or will it make them blind to my state?
Do you have answers? Will you answer?
Comments
Let’s talk umbilical cords, shall we? Especially ones that never ever get severed – even though we think we have. We strut around the earth thinking we can go about chasing our dreams, working our careers the way we’d want to. Seeing people we’d want to and doing roughly whatever we think we can get about . Some by telling, some by subterfuge, some by flat denial. Really depends on the values we absorbed inspite of contrarian teachings.
We study. We play. We achieve. Some of the time. We are loved. We are felt proud of. We are exhibited like trophies – live ones before envious, admiring neighbours, uncles and aunts.
We long to grow up. To be independent – in thought. in action. In terms of being able to enjoy oneself without limits. Boundaries.
We do things. Push limits. Sometimes by our faith, cowardice, principles, we often step back. From the brink. Sometimes because of lack of opportunities.
What is to prevent us from going the whole hog – the umbilical cord- the ties of honour , blood respect and obedience.
Every moment we are tied down – at first by parental forbiddings and afterwards by societal ones – should we have had the ill luck to have a relationship within societal norms.
Afterwards come the patterns – the male pattern baldness, the beer belly, the pear shape the love handles – a kind of self indulgent state where we know we cant go nay further in our quest for joy and happiness.
The next generation has begun. Crooning lullabies to gurgling wailing newborns – more animal than human. All for what reason? Suddenly there is a transference – of ambition, hope, affection sacrifice, and all the finer feelings known to mankind.
In them, we see new hopes – things we are unable to do. Foolishly lulled into thinking that they will do everything achieve everything where we have failed.
They grow. They become like we used to be and we in turn demand everything out of them that was ever demanded out of us. Conformity, obedience, discipline and a willingness to stick to accepted norms.
A ‘Tasher desh’ that has gone on and will go for ever unless… unless one of us takes an independent forthright decision to go his or her own way that the others have been wistful about, but not being able to do.
What was missing in this ‘musing’ .Yes, you got it right? Love. The commonest used, bandied, about sometimes hackneyed, twisted word - that we all seem to want and at the same time -get hot under the collar about? Love is all around – perhaps not the way we might have wanted it.
Even now when houses of cards are shaken – some cards need attention – no matter what they say and do. And some cards don’t have very long to go on. Some are going to be truly lonely. Enter the umbilical cord again…
It is a known fact that men use more logic to decide their judgment while women are more led by emotion. Having said that both the sexes usually show a mix of both – in most situations. One would assume that if one is an exception to the thinking, doing, acting, processes of everyone else around him or her, that individual is either out of time, or place.
So what am I saying – your place is either in a more individualised society – where others don't care a damn and you can do just as you please. Which means you forgo this country that you seem to love so much and head out to a place where you can be yourself and don't carry baggage of socieal norms, relationships , right or wrong.
There is a second possibility . Wait for that time to come when things will be more relaxed and people will stop being as judgmental and go about their own affairs. This seems tougher and doesn't have a time line to it
So am I advocating running away? Yes. You do run away from workplaces – ok ok, move out ,resign, get sacked, fired whatever – to be able to work in a fair and happier environs, isnt it?
So what is to prevent you from living your life away from judgmental people – even if one has to move from one's city or one's country???
The flag of patriotism – I have seen from personal experience - flutters stronger and straighter when you love your country from a distance and are indulgent towards its faults.
2.Whose judgement should prevail?
Obviously the individual's judgement should prevail ! But then dear me , have we been unkind here to the umbilical cords???
How can your point of view be the only one and the right one – when by that you could cause people to suffer or know that they would be about to suffer?
Family - they gave birth to you, raised you, provided, food, shelter and security, gave you your very name?
Families find it tough to let go: always – no matter how rich, successful, mature you turn out to be , you are still their little child- and they will always tell you how to do things right – whether it is savings, raising children, dealing with colleagues, meditation and breath control or expiation of imagined sins – in fact , just about everything .
I'd be thankful if they didn't tell us too often about primitive and ineffective birth control measures or the uselessness of worldly pleasures.
Isnt it true enough that they often live a second life through us?
Friends - they share your elation and your disappointment. Make you feel wanted, important in the world-crowd?
I suddenly get this powerful sense of déjà vu. Have we been thru this before. In a previous birth, perhaps? Have we spoken so many times that it all seems familiar?
Friends – when we were little we did not worry too much about who our friends were -. After a while it became important to have them around. Categorisations happened. Friends, number of friends, school friends, classfriends, best friends, good friends and casual friends . With all the promises to stay together through thick and thin. To fight, to feel jealous, to be angry and to make up. To enjoy things together . And be wistful about the fact that they are not .
Yet as the circle of life moves slowly, inexorably , friends move on , have commitments, relationships, move away physically and emotionally. They become 'hail fellow well met' types. We move on and form newer relationships – not necessarily with labels – in the college, university, workplace and sometimes even in commmuting vehicles – U-specials and chartered buses. One spends time with them, emotions , thoughts, and longings. Sometimes deep buried thoughts. Through all of this,genuine friendships are sustained on a bedrock of shared values – if not, we are fooling ourselves over a façade that masquerades as friendship but is merely superficial.
Yet a friend –can he or she be judgmental about who you are , how you live, what you do and what you don't. I think not. Perhaps as a sounding board – obliquely, yes. Ultimately it is your life and they have theirs. So in this limited venn circles the overlap areas reduce until they are really miniscule. Yet if they are on your side- thru thick and thin and empathise with everything that you think, do, feel and wish – they are no longer friends – they are mates- they are family members bigger than your very own family. And that is a very wishful state of affairs.
Spouse/Lover - has promised to be there through thick and thin. Shares your very bed, home and at times thoughts?
Did we go overboard – reading the paperbacks romances and imagine that the one maiden whom we rescued – or contrariwise – the one knight who rescued the maiden from the ogre – would be the one.
Perhaps real-life turned out differently. Knights kept rescuing and kept looking. While the maidens kept looking to see if there would be more knights after the initial heady encounters.
So what have we here? No till death do us part situations – just that we sometimes walk in easily but hotel california stiyle – find it real impossible to get out.