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.

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!

The company of self

Company has been an important aspect of our being human, we are social animals and being in a company is, therefore, an important aspect. We are always with someone and want to be too, but, being in my recent social “detoxification” phase I realized the importance and the need of being in the company of self! I couldn’t help but wonder the value of the most important company ever, of the self!

The importance of the company of others is highlighted already when we say a man is a social animal, that says it all! Moreover the fact that “you are as the company you keep” also drives the idea home. Everybody everywhere focuses on the importance of being in a company, being with someone, but I fail to find the same emphasis put on spending time with oneself which is much important than how ridiculous it sounds!

I believe we are a complete universe in ourselves which we don’t even know about and how would we know when we don’t spend time with that universe laying hidden in us. When we are in the company of others, we somehow forget ourselves. What all we think then is, how we are being perceived. We hold ourselves someway or the other, we dictate ourselves by the judgment of our company. We are embracing them in the process and our own self is neglected somewhere. True, we need the other to define the self, but that’s to describe ourselves and not explore ourselves.

And after dealing with so many people and so many universes inside each one of them, our own self is overwhelmed, it gets buried under that and perhaps that’s why it takes as long as the complete lifetime for many to explore themselves. There’s a need to cut-off from the hustle-bustle of the social circus and be with our own self. We go out with others to know them well, how about spending some time with yourself and getting to know yourself better? Sounds pretty novel and interesting to me! After all, we need to know our own self first before anything else and get comfortable with the idea of being our self. Explore our own self, know us a better, go on a date with yourself and love and embrace your beautiful self, and all your relations with others would change! Give this to yourself!