Something of Myself
Friday, June 04, 2004
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being"
To start off in a Chris-Brooks type of fashion: when I am in this odd state of mind, I often question the good and evil of all things. Our judgements about people, about issues that affect us and of course about our own "selves" (pun intended, point obscured) seem so trivial at times... I dont think something is inherently evil by itself. To measure evil one has to be aware of what we term as "good" (I know this is an incredibly post-structuralist approach). To know failure, you need to taste success (why do we say 'taste' success and 'meet / met' failure?)...So coming back to my point, I wonder why we become so opinionated in this little world of ours? The innumerable number of worlds that we create, build it with passion, nurture it with our undying efforts and then ruin it with our final judgement - its like you conceive this plot in your mind, write it out, edit it, proof read it, turn it into a manuscript and then use it as a toilet paper.
The choice lies with us. We are the ones who make things and people good or bad. More often than not we do it out of a sense of belonging to our own little worlds. What we dont care to understand or reflect upon is the fact that a person or a thing is neither good nor evil. Take for instance heroes - we make a Sachin out of a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - and we even go to the extent of worshipping him. After certain years, when he begins to show his age we are only to eager and willing to crucify him. The hero dies an untimely death. It is the same with ordinary people - you and me. We ruin it by comparing us with others, by setting our own yardsticks, by wanting more than what we have. Its something like this: money is not evil in itself: the greed of money is. Same for our judgements - nothing is what it seems. It is so banal that we need that sense of the extraordinary to keep us going.
Life doesnt work like that. Life is full of banalities. Therein lies the eternity of it all - the stuff that will remain once we return to dust. The stuff of which legends are made of. Our names, our legacies, our children - they will carry not for which we are famous but for which we are what we are - "one equal temper of heroic hearts / Made weak by time and fate."
My final thoughts: what constitutes the immortal? How can we frame ourselves with a fantastic piece of posterity? Why do we need to do it? Is it because the burden of "being" is unbearable? Why do we need to pass judgements - equate - balance - plus and minuses - divide and multiply - add and subtract - now here - now nowhere - what is the price that one has to pay to be un-judgemental? Why cant life be as simple as it appears to be? Is it achievable? Do we need a Tennysonian Odysseus to realise this? Can we - the ordinary masses of the earth do it? Do we need to be a hero? Are heroes judgemental? Do they see with our corrupted vision - or do they have their unique, un-tainted, un-blemished sense of vision? It is perhaps as one of the contemporary writers put it - the unbearable lightness of being - I am tempted to share the vision...
To start off in a Chris-Brooks type of fashion: when I am in this odd state of mind, I often question the good and evil of all things. Our judgements about people, about issues that affect us and of course about our own "selves" (pun intended, point obscured) seem so trivial at times... I dont think something is inherently evil by itself. To measure evil one has to be aware of what we term as "good" (I know this is an incredibly post-structuralist approach). To know failure, you need to taste success (why do we say 'taste' success and 'meet / met' failure?)...So coming back to my point, I wonder why we become so opinionated in this little world of ours? The innumerable number of worlds that we create, build it with passion, nurture it with our undying efforts and then ruin it with our final judgement - its like you conceive this plot in your mind, write it out, edit it, proof read it, turn it into a manuscript and then use it as a toilet paper.
The choice lies with us. We are the ones who make things and people good or bad. More often than not we do it out of a sense of belonging to our own little worlds. What we dont care to understand or reflect upon is the fact that a person or a thing is neither good nor evil. Take for instance heroes - we make a Sachin out of a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar - and we even go to the extent of worshipping him. After certain years, when he begins to show his age we are only to eager and willing to crucify him. The hero dies an untimely death. It is the same with ordinary people - you and me. We ruin it by comparing us with others, by setting our own yardsticks, by wanting more than what we have. Its something like this: money is not evil in itself: the greed of money is. Same for our judgements - nothing is what it seems. It is so banal that we need that sense of the extraordinary to keep us going.
Life doesnt work like that. Life is full of banalities. Therein lies the eternity of it all - the stuff that will remain once we return to dust. The stuff of which legends are made of. Our names, our legacies, our children - they will carry not for which we are famous but for which we are what we are - "one equal temper of heroic hearts / Made weak by time and fate."
My final thoughts: what constitutes the immortal? How can we frame ourselves with a fantastic piece of posterity? Why do we need to do it? Is it because the burden of "being" is unbearable? Why do we need to pass judgements - equate - balance - plus and minuses - divide and multiply - add and subtract - now here - now nowhere - what is the price that one has to pay to be un-judgemental? Why cant life be as simple as it appears to be? Is it achievable? Do we need a Tennysonian Odysseus to realise this? Can we - the ordinary masses of the earth do it? Do we need to be a hero? Are heroes judgemental? Do they see with our corrupted vision - or do they have their unique, un-tainted, un-blemished sense of vision? It is perhaps as one of the contemporary writers put it - the unbearable lightness of being - I am tempted to share the vision...
1 Comments:
kiddo
i didnt understand this post. but a strange sense of deja vu - cz I just finished unbearable lightness a week or so back. the truth of shit ... ;)
reading mrs dalloway. listen change the comments tool na. this one takes ages to load and goes off sometimes with what we write ... get haloscan like the rest of the world!
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