Prisoner by Birth
A unique set of conditions in the universe conspire to come up with a novel creation that is you. A slight variation in even one of the factors and you won’t have seen the face of Earth but someone else would have taken your place. Born with this gift of uniqueness and individuality where do you go from there. Well not very far, as soon as you arrive the shackles are put in place. When was the last time, your thought was actually yours, you actually did what you believe in?
Humans have been programming computers for a few decades now but Humans have been programming Humans for ages now. You are instructed about what is right, what is wrong, what you should believe in, your definition of beauty, success is all skewed up and these explicit impressions of society on you are just the tip of the iceberg. Everything from your lifestyle to career, marital choices are a direct manifestation of social and peer influences. You run the rat race only to realize you never liked cheese in the first place. Society definitely has a role to play, we are social animals after all; Society is there to imbibe certain behavioral, occupational and other such traits in you but the way society takes over and shapes an individual’s thoughts, eroding free will is what worries me. If it was not for an individual’s independent way of thinking, going against commonly held norms, we would have still known the Earth as flat. So, to put it metaphorically, it is not the World that should shape an individual’s thought but the individual’s unique perspective that should shape the world. Every person is born a leader, a leader of his own destiny, sent to make his own path, etch his own mark on this Earth but when does he turn into a follower or worse a mere spectator of his destiny being shaped by others.
I know I have raised a lot of questions and you ears are already eager for some answers. But, frankly, there are no answers, in fact I do not want to answer questions for you, it will be a contradiction on my part and actually aggravate the problem. The answers should come from within and not elsewhere. My intention was just to highlight questions that you may have come across at certain stage in your life and willingly and unwillingly ignored them or even if you never realized, you should certainly think on. The idea is not for me to become Ayn Rand of this century and generate a set of followers, in fact my only wish is to see everyone become great thinkers in their own right.
Don’t live somebody else’s life, chase somebody else’s dream, find and live yours. The day you cease to think on your own is when you cease to exist, you simply persist aur aisa jeena bhi koi jeena hai laloo J (Translation: That living is not a worth way of living – though your thinking may differ from mine which is perfectly acceptable :-) )
Just be yourself and the world will be yours.
A unique set of conditions in the universe conspire to come up with a novel creation that is you. A slight variation in even one of the factors and you won’t have seen the face of Earth but someone else would have taken your place. Born with this gift of uniqueness and individuality where do you go from there. Well not very far, as soon as you arrive the shackles are put in place. When was the last time, your thought was actually yours, you actually did what you believe in?
Humans have been programming computers for a few decades now but Humans have been programming Humans for ages now. You are instructed about what is right, what is wrong, what you should believe in, your definition of beauty, success is all skewed up and these explicit impressions of society on you are just the tip of the iceberg. Everything from your lifestyle to career, marital choices are a direct manifestation of social and peer influences. You run the rat race only to realize you never liked cheese in the first place. Society definitely has a role to play, we are social animals after all; Society is there to imbibe certain behavioral, occupational and other such traits in you but the way society takes over and shapes an individual’s thoughts, eroding free will is what worries me. If it was not for an individual’s independent way of thinking, going against commonly held norms, we would have still known the Earth as flat. So, to put it metaphorically, it is not the World that should shape an individual’s thought but the individual’s unique perspective that should shape the world. Every person is born a leader, a leader of his own destiny, sent to make his own path, etch his own mark on this Earth but when does he turn into a follower or worse a mere spectator of his destiny being shaped by others.
I know I have raised a lot of questions and you ears are already eager for some answers. But, frankly, there are no answers, in fact I do not want to answer questions for you, it will be a contradiction on my part and actually aggravate the problem. The answers should come from within and not elsewhere. My intention was just to highlight questions that you may have come across at certain stage in your life and willingly and unwillingly ignored them or even if you never realized, you should certainly think on. The idea is not for me to become Ayn Rand of this century and generate a set of followers, in fact my only wish is to see everyone become great thinkers in their own right.
Don’t live somebody else’s life, chase somebody else’s dream, find and live yours. The day you cease to think on your own is when you cease to exist, you simply persist aur aisa jeena bhi koi jeena hai laloo J (Translation: That living is not a worth way of living – though your thinking may differ from mine which is perfectly acceptable :-) )
Just be yourself and the world will be yours.
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