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.
