Thinking Straight - Morbid Theory
The materialistic world of today requires us to live our lives on the grounds that the community around us expects us to live it in. The people around us circumscribe our thoughts. We tend to live for what is expected of us as opposed to what is morally correct. It is a struggle between our ambivalent emotions: what we want to do and ;what we are expected to do.
It must have been a couple of days back that I saw a bedraggled blind man being led across the road by another pedestrian. Immediately I had elevated the pedestrian to a level of respect that I preserve for only a few.
However today I saw another handicapped in want of crossing the road. I gladly helped him out only to realize that rather than coming to his aid it was my own selfish thought that had provoked me to take such a step. A thought that told me that this deed would advertise or portray myself to the world as a philanthropist like the pedestrian mentioned above. The accruement of these thoughts brought about a storm in my mind. What if the pedestrian that I had apotheosized had been thinking on parallel lines as myself? What if it were all just a blatant display of false emotions?
Frankly, most of us live this dual life of conflicting ideas and emotions. Our minds shout out a mouthful of abuses at a poor joke cracked by our bosses but we end up flashing a false smile and faking a loud laughter. This hypocrisy that we inculcate and carry on is only a mere strategy to survive out there in the real world.
Recently I was asked as to why I took up engineering as my career. After a moment of contemplation I realized I was not quite so sure myself. It was probably the people around me who happened to influence my thoughts and the rest as they say is history. Here again it was the expectations of my peers and my acquiescence to those expectations that resulted in this decision.
I believe it is hi time that we break out of this mould. Rather than bisecting or thoughts on what we want and what we are expected, let us make our wants our expectations. We have to chuck the dual life and live for what is the want of the moment i.e. purge our souls off its duplicity and simply think straight.
It must have been a couple of days back that I saw a bedraggled blind man being led across the road by another pedestrian. Immediately I had elevated the pedestrian to a level of respect that I preserve for only a few.
However today I saw another handicapped in want of crossing the road. I gladly helped him out only to realize that rather than coming to his aid it was my own selfish thought that had provoked me to take such a step. A thought that told me that this deed would advertise or portray myself to the world as a philanthropist like the pedestrian mentioned above. The accruement of these thoughts brought about a storm in my mind. What if the pedestrian that I had apotheosized had been thinking on parallel lines as myself? What if it were all just a blatant display of false emotions?
Frankly, most of us live this dual life of conflicting ideas and emotions. Our minds shout out a mouthful of abuses at a poor joke cracked by our bosses but we end up flashing a false smile and faking a loud laughter. This hypocrisy that we inculcate and carry on is only a mere strategy to survive out there in the real world.
Recently I was asked as to why I took up engineering as my career. After a moment of contemplation I realized I was not quite so sure myself. It was probably the people around me who happened to influence my thoughts and the rest as they say is history. Here again it was the expectations of my peers and my acquiescence to those expectations that resulted in this decision.
I believe it is hi time that we break out of this mould. Rather than bisecting or thoughts on what we want and what we are expected, let us make our wants our expectations. We have to chuck the dual life and live for what is the want of the moment i.e. purge our souls off its duplicity and simply think straight.
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