I have to admit, there’s nothing exciting going on in my life these days worth writing about, which actually makes writing a blog a “task” rather than fun. I won’t continue last time’s childhood talk and will leave it to you to elaborate. Well, then what am I doing here? Why do I have to write at all? Am I not entitled to freedom of expression and also the right to remain silent? Forgive me if I sound hostile, but it’s all true. I started writing this because I promised to and I’m “afraid” of not sticking to my promise, which would lead you to stop visiting my blog!
We all, in one form or the other, submit to slavery. Be it slavery to our desires, slavery to fear and slavery to our own soul. Pure realisation of freedom is seldom existent in any human being.
Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
French political philosopher (1712 - 1778)
I remember preparing a debate on this very statement by Rousseau, back in tenth standard. What made us all go home and ask our mum’s to write it for us? Why couldn’t we feel free enough to do it for ourselves? Any guesses? What were we afraid of... Defeat? Embarrassment? Agony? And in case you wonder, eventually the student who won turned out to be an English teacher’s son, because he had the best “content”!
We all could tolerate the fact that someone else was doing it for us, but no one could risk losing! Even the mothers didn’t leave any imperfection and applied themselves fully with dictionaries and thesauruses handy. Why should their child get left behind -right! Well, in a classroom where even homework wasn’t checked regularly, what started this activity, what made someone organise a debate! It was an assignment at the end of a chapter, and the teacher was supposed to deal with it. She never wanted to do it, she had to! She had no choice, no freedom of thought, no desire, hence no improvisation was involved. Every single person involved in this system is doing what he in lieu of a favour, or in fear of a consequence!
Do you think all this is leading to a whole revolution in education? It’s only killing our innovativeness and thought. And knowing the consequences of such a statement, I feel vindicated and free, to say that the present education system in India is fucking up our brain. It’s not making us capable of thinking for ourselves. Well, today I won’t go on about the education factor. Let’s keep that discussion for another blog, or even better, to your opinion.
I’m no different from the crowd. The worst decisions in my life (and trust me I haven’t made even a decent number of good ones) have all been made under the fear of something. When I had to choose a stream for my career I had the option of anything I wanted. I had always wanted to do something related to arts or computers. But, no! How could I do that? I felt the same lack of freedom that day, and for once, I did decide to listen to my heart. I went to school with full confidence i’ll take arts, and asked my class teacher for my form, where everyone expected me to opt for medical. Why? Well, because it’s supposed to be tougher, and commerce has a lower cut-off, and because my whole extended family is full of doctors, thats why! I couldn’t say no. Don’t know why... but I couldn’t. Guess I wasn’t free after all. I could’ve said anything I wanted that day, which could have changed the course of my life in favour of what I wanted, but it didn’t happen. So here I am, in a medical college, trying to make movies!
And after all this, I just think, and feel, that we should all try to do and become (even if we can’t be sure of the consequences) whatever we feel the best doing. It’s easier said than done, but then there’s this thing about relentless pursuit, if you chase it long enough, you’ll get it. But don’t expect it to run all around the world on its own and eventually get to you anyway. You have to take what you want. Don’t limit yourself to the world’s perception of you, believe me, they never want to see anyone but themselves rise in life. Don’t submit yourself, you are all you have, there’s nothing to lose. Go there and just DO IT. BREAK FREE. And don’t care about what people said isn’t possible. Just see this video and you’ll be convinced enough not to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stZqLuKJV6g
If no one ever dared to do anything different, maybe early man is what our coming generations may have called us. We are what we are because people before us dared to be themselves and did not carry an “image” to them. They had an integrity of sorts that made them invincible to the perception of the world, which eventually made them leaders and pioneers... and great people.
To sign off, I would just put a thought forward for a discussion. Isn’t what’s hip-ly referred to now as being COOL, actually just being free! See, if you don’t care what people say or do, you’re cool. If you don’t give a damn about what people think about you, you’re ultra cool. Freedom is ice cold!
So? What do you want to do today?
Tonnes of luv,
Arjun
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