Collective psychology of atavistic mindsets and dilemmas.

 

Collective psychology of atavistic mindsets and dilemmas.

The push and the pull factors.

India has a culture of push at family level and social level. At family level even the poor people push all their limits and try to get their children educated, skilled and employed.

The pull factor from government to absorb them , encourage them, at least those who are well educated, employable and contributing tax is lacking.

So, individuals and small businesses are forced to fend for themselves.

For example, if you see economies like Malaysia is it fully only pull. The government literally, provides all facilities to Bhoomi putras whereas , in India even the most educated hardworking tax paying individuals are at the mercy of government babus and politicians just to protect their hard-earned money and to get the basic amenities. Though the conditions have been far better in the past 9 years, still a lot needs to be done.      

There are or could be multiple reasons for this if we study collective psychology from all aspects.

There are those shameless colonial bossy insolence of the imperial elitists and supremacist narratives which have impacted so much that we see a mix of some atavistic mindsets and dilemmas, some inherent self-imposed attitudes of unreasonable consternations creeping in subconscious and squirming with uneasiness and more sickening attitude is that  everyone starting from those in power to ordinary employees getting excited by endorsement by those very colonial bosses.

Reality needs to take over Narratives.

The domineering tone of narratives of the West and its assertive publicity coupled with lack of spine from countries of Africa and Asia have ensured through multiple means the West could lure the luddites and pamper the parasites than allow a self-respecting country from Asia and Africa to march with its own ethnocentric pride even if it becomes in reality an economic power [ China and India], if it has immense natural resource owning nation [ African Gold mine owning nations and Middle East oil owning nations] or provides excellent skilled and intelligent work force and technological innovations generating countries [ Israel and India].

 

 

Strength needs to rule over dynamics of Power.

A day will come eventually when real ‘strength’ [ strength of natural resources, intellectual power, work force, skill sets etc.] will overcome the dubious dynamics of ‘ power’ [ which go by mostly publicity driven narratives through media, manipulations through military strategy and clandestine economic deals and grouping to impose sanctions etc.]

Self-imprisonment works in these ways without even our realizing it.

“Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:

first, that beliefs are the result of conditions.

second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions.

and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”― Eric Micha'el Leventhal.

 

George Bernard Shaw  wrote, " The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

West will realise and stop its obsession to manipulate, homogenize and hegemonize through domination only when the rest of  the world starts to assert its bargaining power without any irrelevant exhibition of xenophobia.

 

India centric observations.

Most Indians emphasise more on survival aspect of life at the cost of the joys of living aspects of life.

Therefore, they tend to be employment seekers with immense social and parental pressure to get employed and ‘settling down in life’.

 

Living, growing up and settling down what do they mean?

 

Predominant middle class is an army of  obsessive employment seeker with better stakes at matrimonial market.

 

Life in its very essence means lively so it cannot settle down. Settling down is a loosely used and well accepted terminological contradiction.

 

Life has neither a pause button nor is it a pass it on baton.

 

Everything is part of life and not apart from life and therefore cannot be kept apart for a future date or an assumed future condition.

 

Life may be very broadly viewed as involving two major aspects survival [physical, social, material, psychological etc] aspects of life and living aspects of life [observing, enjoying, and experiencing life as it unfolds].

 

However, this sort of high-sounding philosophy is not meant as a sermon and need not distract anyone from pursuing planned living geared towards certain practical better survival aspects.

 

Growing up and growing out of certain things are natural process of evolutionary metamorphosis both biologically and psychologically.

 

In life many things or to be precise everything is a step or part but not a stop.

 

However , we are at liberty to create our own labels and definitions of settling down mostly used or abused by referring to mean material comforts alone through which we presume some social respectability is gained.

 

"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner

 

"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex."- M. Scott Peck

 

 

Though no one can find fault with a notion which is predominant enough to influence and impact various aspects of life leading to multiple complexes, comparisons, competitions, capability enhancement etc.

 

All of these have their positive as well as negative implications of varying degrees of intensities swinging between extremes like enhanced performances, pride, privileges to sulking suicidal tendencies.

 

While the positive outcomes bring joy and are welcome, we need to address the negatives.

 

But having taken a coin can we avoid one side, or can we avoid the coin itself, no?

 

Our problem is mostly in either knowing the value of the coin or increasing its value, here finding the meaning and purpose of life, or trying to define something or things as meaningful or purposeful or trying to improve or increase this purpose and meaning of life.

 

We can avoid the unpleasant consequences of ‘settling down’ if we have a better understanding of the inevitable facts and infuse more substance into whatever we are doing rather trying to superficially substantiate our position or seeking others attention to acknowledge it.

 

Comprehensive analysis hoping that it would lead to better understanding inevitably makes write ups long and therefore meant for people with time, interest, and inclination to know much deeper rather than pandering to like button pressers, avid forwarders, abbreviation lovers.

 

I firmly believe at least while discussing certain subjects in what Dobelli says, ‘In the Art of Thinking clearly’ "With journalists, it is more difficult. Some have acquired true knowledge. Often they are veteran reporters who have specialized for years in a clearly defined area. They make a serious effort to understand the complexity of a subject and to communicate it. They tend to write long articles that highlight a variety of cases and exceptions.”

 

 

 "Existence consists in the interplay of a plurality of elements whose true nature is indescribable and whose source is unknown. Combinations of these elements instantaneously flash into existence and instantaneously disappear, to be succeeded by new combinations of elements appearing in a strict causality." - Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre 

 

 

In the background of these simple and basic facts we need to go about unravelling more intrinsic aspects of life in much deeper ways and try to understand a little more about life and what happens while we live it [ not brushing aside anything through sermons  as dos and don’ts or as traditions and taboos].

 

While doing this as I always maintain that we cannot avoid:- our vulnerability or accountability to existing manufactured belief systems; social mores or morals either inculcated or enforced in whichever place/region/society we are born and brought up; the ideas/opinions churned out in various field either relevant or irrelevant but exist out there and brought within the radar of our attention and all these subjected to our limited perception and unlimited bias, inflated egos and lack of humility.

 

Along with these we must also realize that most of our actions and reactions are based on our inherent/innate/natural attributes, the inevitable context/situation/circumstance in which we are in and our attitude [s] towards everything and everyone based on these or despite these.

 

It is also a fact that based on these we always end up acting or reacting with actions, words, thoughts etc according to what we want, what we can and what we are destined to do.

 

So, there is a perennial duel going on between inner forces/weakness and external influences and impacts.

 

Life’s journey is a constant process of learning and adjusting to these and carrying on with various balancing acts, involving lot of choices and decisions, which have a generous spread of synonyms to justify like inevitable confirmations, flexibilities, hypocrisies, diplomacies, social accommodation, disciplined life, socio-cultural compatibility etc.

 

All fields of human knowledge systems and actions help us with accumulated knowledge of processes to facilitate us in our choices and decisions be it religion, politics, science, or socio-cultural frames of functioning.

 

 

We must be able to steer clear of all unwanted distraction when we exercise our choice or take decisions to ensure that they give pleasure to or improve us physically, psychologically, or spiritually without harming, or sometimes with the least possible harm to, society and environment and all life forms. In short ensure intrinsic value additions to all or some of the facets of life mentioned above.

 

"To make progress in understanding all this, we probably need to begin with simplified (oversimplified?) models and ignore the critics' tirade that the real world is more complex. The real world is always more complex, which has the advantage that we shan't run out of work."- John Ball, 1984, Memes as Replicators, Ethology and Sociobiology, Vol. 5

 

Like with everything else this concept of ‘settling down’ carries different crazy connotations, exerts various pressures, and extracts varying degrees of sacrifice and or postponement of life’s joys and experiences depending on the economic conditions and socio-cultural pressures etc.

 

In certain societies the competitions, comparisons and pressures are so enormous on everyone that it leads to various manifestations of stress, frustrations, fights, and end ups depriving life of its happiness, peace, joy etc.

 

I am tempted to imitate an excellent and famous verse by Rabindranath Tagore 

“Where The Mind Is Without Fear : 
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high 
Where knowledge is free 
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments 
By narrow domestic walls 
Where words come out from the depth of truth 
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection 
where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit 
Where the mind is led forward by thee 
Into ever-widening thought and action 
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”. –by Rabindranath Tagore 

                    My imitated version of verse titled

 

        ‘Living life and setting down in life’

 

Where life is lived and leads us out of these compulsions:

 

Where life is made to pass through motions of /phases of existence

 

So that it can settle down somehow, somewhere in some way.

 

Where life’s activities must confirm existing approved labels.

 

Where life is deprived of any unbiased free observations.

 

Where life’s relationships are confined by narrow expectations of reciprocation.

 

Where life is subjected to scrutiny with ulterior motives and hidden agendas.

 

Where life’s interactions happen with lurking suspicions and simmering discontent.

 

Where life’s inter relatedness goes unnoticed because of narrow identity cages.

 

Let us live a life observing, experiencing, and enjoying as it unfolds continuously flowing like a gentle river without settling down.

 

Let us enjoy the playful innocence of childhood.

 

Let us enjoy the carefree abandon of youth.

 

Let us learn the pleasures, privileges, and responsibility of blossoming adulthood.

 

Let us enjoy romance and relate with love.

 

Let us experience the inter relatedness of everything and everyone.

 

Let nature/fate decide to settle down life by stopping oxygen supply.