The Hollow Living- Relationships of Convenience

Walking through the wardrobe of relationship specimens of our generation of millennials, many varieties come to the fore. While variation is at the core of all the relationships, one thing runs common in all of them like blood running in our veins!

That one convention, rather a tradition of all the relationships is the lack of “Effort”.

We have become a generation of easy-going, good-at-goodbyes, not-giving-a-damn fellas walking down all our relationships with the same attitude.

Friendship, Dating, and all other everyday connections and relations we make over and above the familial bonds are in name and not in essence. Best friend, sister-like, friend, brother, all this and many other bonds are named but how many are followed in its true sense.

We have build a pretence, or maybe we live in a pretence of easy living where finding replacement of any individual in our lives is as easy as making a cup of tea!

We find replacements faster than we get refunds from online shopping sites.

Are we so busy or are we just too lazy to put effort into our relationships? or have we become so hollow that relationships are just for convenience and social media posts?

We are just looking for an excuse to abandon it all and run from it that we leave no room for fixing problem let alone the expression of care and attention. Perhaps we are scared of attachments, we are scared of working on problems? We are the generation of effortless living.

We are more comfortable with goodbyes,
than standing by.
Effort is now a figment of imagination,
And convenience is the only foundation.

Our generation has forgotten what a real friendship means, what it means to put in efforts to build a bond, how caring and attention are all part of it.

We have become a generation affluent in hiding rather than expressing.

We have forgotten that words mean something, when we call someone close friend, it’s not just a tag, it’s a bond, built on love, care, attention and all the things that are based on efforts.

We have become legit runners, running away from responsibility, emotions, feelings, expressing. All these phrases: “I’ll be there for you”; “I’ve got your back”; “you can count on me”; now remain just meaningless fancy words, song lyrics and nothing more.

Where have we lost the most important ingredient of building relations, where are the efforts?

Maybe same day deliveries and online shopping has ripped us of this word effort, we don’t know the effort involved in going from shop-to-shop to find that perfect dress.

But, all is not lost, we need to blend in some effort in our relations and stop crying and cribbing on the short liveliness of all the relationships we have in our lives. We blame the time, we blame the people, but, we forget it’s made of you and me!

We are these people that we are blaming each second of each day and lamenting on the deterioration of our generation.

The Magnet of Attraction

When thinking of attraction and the magnet comes running along, but what is the magnet like?How does it work? What does it attract? Oh, aren’t these questions like a puzzle stuck at the end… you can see the complete image but you just can’t get to it! You know you are getting attracted, you know it, you know it is happening, but, how? Why? How does this mechanism work! Well, food for thought for me!

The one thing common behind all the attraction charade is that we are attracted to the things we think we are lacking in our own self.

The magnet is built perhaps in a way to get attracted subconsciously to those traits and qualities that we think we lack.

Somewhere deep in our minds, we think that we cannot do certain things and lack certain qualities, and the moment someone possessing those “properties” comes across, the magnet goes crazy and buzz towards them, irrespective of the gender. Because attraction is not always about romantic feelings and desires, sometimes we are just drawn towards certain people and we just happen to like them indescribably.

Perhaps our ego then, sitting under the bed, hiding, has a comforting stroke and we feel an appeal towards those specifics.

And more often than not, we are just attracted to the idea we form and not the actual person, yes, it is a thing!

The magnet seems to be hungry for the things and “properties” unattainable or lacking! The apparent non-attainment instills a desire which becomes attraction many a time!

Go on decode the pattern of the last attraction you have had and maybe you will uncover this secret of the magnet yourself!

Politics of Conformity: The truth behind labels

We struggle to define ourselves to fit into a box, which is a preconceived and preconditioned notion. In the process, we desperately try to find a label that could define us, a label that we can be attached to. We end up spending our lives not chasing our dreams but chasing the ideal should-be-figures!

In the chasm of labels and definitions, I couldn’t help but wonder, Are these labels and definitions conforming us?

Let’s look at some examples of conformity around us:

Women should be home-makers and good cooks, just as men should be strong and should not cry. Now, these labels which we created to define things, are in turn conforming us and restricting us to a particular role, shutting us in a shell.

Men are under tremendous pressure to uphold the label which is affecting their psyche and life both. Imagine a man who is under excruciating pain, a man who is hurt from the inside, but he can’t vent it. He can’t cry, he can’t even let go of his emotions. Reportedly, many men fail to come out and talk about sexual harrassment, because of their label.

Gender conformity, is the classic example of conformity born out of labels. We are restricted by labels of male and female that we cease to acknowledge the world beyond cisgender.

These labels create boxes, which define us and tell us how one should be, completely negating what one is!

When we are kids, we are told that we can be anything we want to be, only to grow up and find out it’s a sham! You cannot be just anything, you have to fit in a box!

And if we fail to identify with just one label, we fail to fit into any box and end up being alienated with our own selves!

Let’s take a break, let’s flow like a river, let’s not bend into any box, let’s be whatever we want to be, for “To define is to limit”. Do not limit yourself, find yourself. Instead of following the labels, follow your heart. Life is a journey of learnings, learn and bloom. The boxes won’t let the sunlight in!

The Fault in our Dreams?

Standing at a point, at the junction of floating in the faraway world of reveries of future and the dawn of reality, aims and ambitions make you go through this question again and again and you ask your own self where are we going wrong? When life really begins, freshly out of college or after completing studies when you finally have to come face to face with reality and the brutal real world the dreams stop visiting, they do it gradually, and slowly until you are left with nothing but the real world outside, where actions have to be taken and dreaming won’t serve the purpose and so leaves quietly…

Being there at that standpoint of the reality, I couldn’t help but wonder is our ambition the fault in our dreams?

There are all kinds of theories out there, some push you to activity while others toss you into the passivity of predestination… But the one thing that happens is that deriving conclusion can be a legwork! While growing up we all dream, have ambitions of doing great in our lives, achieving the goals, earning the best, we all have ambitions, but, are those the ambitions the reason of our unhappiness?

I sometimes wonder at ambitions of my own self and ponder over the whole point of having one when apparently some dreams and ambitions are too big to be true, is there anything like that? When reality thwarts those ambitions and crumbles them down, what’s left except sadness and disheartenment!They make us go out of our boundaries and constraints and apparently to those unachievable targets which turn us into a shooting star and does more harm than good! The whole crisis that the modern man faces is actually due to their ambitions, they want to go up and this makes them restless, tensed and the whole life is spent in this modern crisis of the modern man! It does not let us be content or happy in our own lives that we live and disturb us psychologically, physically, and emotionally. Makes us go against the social order, the class order, and challenge the accepted, makes life troublesome, endless struggles and full of dissatisfaction…

It seems to me like the “Fatal Flaw” the “Hamartia” of the modern man just like the classic tragedies, the protagonist has a fatal flaw which results in the downfall or the tragedy. Well, ambitions seem to work the same way. Is it good to have ambitions? Is it bad? Should we abandon all our ambitions for a “happy life”? Is it the flaw in our dreams?

I probably don’t know the answers for I myself am looking for them. But I know one thing for sure if we won’t have ambitions we won’t have any driving force to get out of our living conditions. What would push you into working for something better? True, it can make you unsatisfied and sad when not realized but the present conditions don’t make you happy anyway, hence, the ambitions! But yes, only ambitions won’t solve the purpose we need to pull our socks and work in the direction that ambition gives us! That’s my take on ambition you can share yours, perhaps you have got a better answer to the questions we have every day! If not anyone, the answers to these may help your own self.

The Anti-hero

If life’s a film, then the most celebrated “rationality” is that exemplary protagonist who is celebrated unquestionably! And if there’s a hero, there ought to be a villain, and here comes the nasty villain no one wants in their movie, “Life”, irrationality, the quirky, weird qualities’ goon that is shunned from the movie even before it is seen.

But what’s amusing is that life cannot be without this “anti-hero”. We all have two sides rather more than two sides if we go into the details and that most certainly doesn’t mean that everyone is deceitful or a hypocrite, no, not in the least. We all have a quirky, and an irrational side which we beat down to the deepest, and darkest corners of our self!

I couldn’t help but wonder, why is rationality and always logical, and “normal” the undefeated hero? Yes, it is important and required but why is it the autocratic ruler of our self? Why are we all ashamed or afraid to be different, to be a little insane, to be irrational, to be our own self, unapologetically, and unabashedly? we are not always obliged to make sense or to feed to the intellectual, normal, society and our self, we don’t always have to impress others! Impress yourself, satiate your quirkiness and weird self you think people won’t like, first.You’re not always expected to behave with the utmost sanity, without even realizing the silly, stupid, goofy, weird, and quirky self is dying! We are ashamed of it to even accept it as our part. Why don’t we embrace the twin of our hero, the anti-hero? Perhaps we are too afraid to be out of the “normal” when actually normal is nothing but the consensually accepted norms. There’s always a squeaky voice that asks you to do something that your hero, won’t permit, and thus, we shush it down and compose ourselves to the “accepted” side of our personality!

What scares us more often than not is that people won’t accept it and we would be a fool even without the wacky red nose! This anti-hero is actually that goofy element that makes the movie of life entertaining, agile, and, well, enjoyable! Stop being afraid of that quirky, weird you, if you’ll embrace it then only others would, and those who don’t, well, aren’t they too dull and monotonous anyway! If we kill this anti-hero, we kill the fun! Let’s all embrace this silly little side and make life fun.

Be the happy, quirky, weird self. Unapologetically.

The tale of being a grown up!

The most difficult thing to do is to try and sleep when in the middle of the night, out of nowhere you are stuck with a random thought which wouldn’t let you sleep! This time it was about being a “Grown up”, “An adult”, yes, the reaction after reading the preceding lines would be, oh again the same old topic, oh it is usual, yes we know it… and so on. Well, wouldn’t blame that, since it actually is the one thought that everyone, every single person gets once in his or her lives. But, it is quite difficult to suppress your feelings of expression, after all, history knows it, the insuppressible need of expression has landed many in trouble!

The one thing that is so heartbreaking about growing up is “reality”, oh yes, it hurts like a motherF… all the “fantastic” thoughts and beliefs and ideas, on appearing in the battleground of life as an adult, fail! Yes, people, lie; yes, to that extent; yes, it won’t always be a happy ending; yes, the good times won’t last forever; yes there are more misses than hits; yes adults cry too; yes forevers are actually not forever! When those ideals and ideas are failing the test, in reality, you see that it is not all hunky-dory and bright and shining always as you always dreamt of it.

All we secretly desire when we are little is to grow up and finally be an adult, and all we secretly think when we are an adult is that when did we grow up? when did we get “so adult”? When did we grow up so much that we don’t even have time to watch our favorite series, to catch up with the lazy noon nap…

When we finally step in the shoes, we see the world like an enthusiastic all positive with all the high spirits we have, which fade real soon! We realize we got to deal with everything on our own and boy, there are many of them! You get to know it is not a fairy world and the moral fables and tales you grew up with are nothing but a farce. And there’s nothing wrong with it, for it is just a phase, where you are too shattered and everything seems nothing but a big lie fed to you since childhood, but, it is a phase. Soon you will find the meaning again and even sooner you’ll lose it again. You would know that even though you are now free to do what you want but you will also realize the responsibility that freedom will bring along. The world would become so scary that you wouldn’t want to face it, and be a part of it anymore. But, soon something would cross your path that would restore you back into the game. You would learn to let go and know that it is not always painful and actually, that is when you are the real adult. When you are ready to face your shit and take care of it as well, that’s when you are an adult! When you aren’t scared anymore that’s when you are an adult.

“Small issues will be small and not the hype, moving on happily will be your type, and that’s when you know you are ripe”

We feel bruised, hurt, and vulnerable all of a sudden, we cannot get to terms with being “unprotected” in the real world. We walk, we run, we stop, we fall, we get hurt, but the best thing about growing up is that we stand up again! We HEAL! Yes, we become strong, the slightest pinch that would have made us cry for hours now mean nothing, the biggest falls we face and still we are back on our feet, that, is the beauty of growing up!

We learn, we upgrade, we move on, we move high, and low sometimes… yes, it is difficult, yes, it is horrific, but trust me, you’ll go through this… and that’s what being a grown up is! We’ll get through everything and rise above all! And with time we’ll have a bulletproof armor around us too (metaphorically, though)! Here’s to being an adult and loving it!

Jack of all trades…?

The one idiom that has stayed with all of us right through our childhood and still has a place somewhere in our minds and hearts, “Jack of all trades and master of none”. The one so famously used! Thinking of which, I couldn’t help but wonder, don’t we all strive to be Jacks in our life too?

It has always fascinated me, what’s the problem with being the jack of all trades? Isn’t it another way of saying that someone is versatile? Are we all not itching to be versatile? To know the humor of as many things as possible, the more the better! If that’s the case then why is being Jack so bad?

Let’s think of it this way, in the war front while fighting who do you think would fare better, one who is the best shooter(master of one) or the one who is not only a good shooter but good in defending and medics, so on and so forth as well. Well, that’s just a thought that came while playing the commando game (in defense of the lack of technicalities). Or let’s take a simpler example, aren’t we all groomed to be good, in almost every field, right from our schools? And not only school, in life, in jobs, everywhere, versatile, jacks-of-all-trades fare super well. Don’t they? And oh how much demand they are in! We ourself have a little respect, if not much, for the versatile jacks around us, and somewhere we are secretly wishing to be one as well!

Let’s be open to this idea for a minute and let me give you food for thought! Isn’t the jack of all trades better and not as negative as it is thought to be? Yes, being a master is surely prestigious and important, but, being versatile today is more important. Isn’t it? Let’s deconstruct this idiom and have a thought on it!

Converting preaching into practice?!

We all are a big fan of preaching and we all have, at least once, been on the preaching side of the situation and oh! what we become then! And being into one such situation, while preaching, it hit me, why are we so good at preaching and not practicing? I couldn’t help but wonder are we putting all our preaching into practice?

It’s a known and established fact that the one with the best solutions is generally the one who is with the maximum problems! And that is true. The moment we step into the shoes of preaching and the advisor, we become the sane, all-knowing problem solver. Somehow being an advisor and a preacher is always easier and we all are best at it. But, when it comes to practicing, are we so efficient?

Days of thinking and after many rounds of “intra-brainy” debates, I think I’ve found a probable reason behind it. When we preach something or someone, we are distanced and the personal bias is removed with all the personal barriers, we become the objective person who views from the objective vantage point angle. And then we become the unbiased advisor which is easy because we have an objective, detached, and unprejudiced reading and thus, giving valuable words of wisdom becomes pretty obvious. We distance ourselves and the moment we are not personally connected to it, we become stronger, rational, aloof, and neutral, hence, the perfect advice comes out. Yet when we come to ourselves in a problem, it feels like being in the eye of the cyclone and we have no clue what to do and how to because it’s all happening and moving so fast. We are clouded by all our personal weaknesses and, all our wisdom, well, goes right out the window in a bag with all our rationality.

However, I feel somehow all this can be solved too. For there is a solution for every problem including this one! So, next time when all us wise preachers are in some trouble we ought to practice what we preach! The wisdom showered on others while being a preacher to them can very well be redirected to our own selves, because, hey, you are the same person who had the astute preaching going for others, you can do it well for yourself. The only trick needed here is, be the distanced objective reader (which you are while preaching others) for yourself. Be distanced and view it objectively, detach yourself and let your rationality work for you. Trust me you will the best advisor for yourself and then practicing what you preach would not be a far cry!