Monday, August 30, 2010

Being Myself

The following article is not coherent and cohesive, but depicts my thought processes which are random fluctuations of my mind, sometimes strewn together by different feelings that emanate from my acute observation of life.

I was not born smart.Neither did education and experience enrich me in a way that I could be any smarter than just imitating people who seemed to have a lifestyle that I was desperate to attain, consciously and unconsciously(sometimes). For me, it has always been extremely puzzling to make a choice or to decide upon something. I get baffled at the slightest of difficulties and ponder about the implications and in the end, the work does not get done.

I wanted to share my precarious situation with all; those who know me well, are aware of it & those who have guessed it, I just want to assure them that it is not wrong. Interestingly, as I look back, at every stage, right from the very beginning, I found it very hard to do things, which people claimed to have been able to when they were of my age and what was expected of me seemed to be (unbelievably) unattainable.

But, there was a turn of events in my life when something different happened. I thought that I was getting smart. I felt I was getting to understand things in ways like never before and started developing confidence about myself. But to add to that, I started valuing hard work and even virtues like dedication and consistency. My value system was starting to become like people who ended up to be successful, I believed. I was developing faith on my views and opinions.

Of all that has happened to me, mostly they have happened in the academic front in my life. I somehow had no other life. So, naturally, that turn of events occurred in my school life. It's not that I have done academically good. But it's like,I was comfortable with playing cricket and never really minded playing Ranji lifelong even though fruits were sour.

I was trying to solve some textbook problems and I could solve them after sitting with them for hours and days, but nevertheless I could solve them like never before. I solved more and more and I almost exhausted the problem sets & other textbooks too. This new-found confidence, I believed defined me. I started to extrapolate and manipulate. I solved more problems for many more years till I landed up in an engineering college. During and after which, I solved none. Of late, I believe a problem is best solved when left to itself.

The confidence slowly dissolved due to lack of realization and gave way to confusion. With age, confusion accumulated and transformed into cynicism. Cynicism brought more cynicism and led to rationality and absolute rationalization. This makes a person insane. However I am not one. There is a simple reason for that. I am not capable to link up all the logic together at the same time to make me feel miserable enough to become insane.

I was talking with somebody when I just stopped listening to what that person was saying. Instead I had a realization. It seemed interesting to me. It would not to most people. Because, it is a little scary. I found a great analogy to what goes on around me, to people like me who are born in such times in such lands to such people with what I am going to talk about hereafter. It at least involves a more glorified character of a military man, who toils more and suffers no less than me.

Imagine a little boy who read the newspaper much to grow up to watch TV News Channels and then patronized by Daddy, ended up in military school with misplaced national sentiments. And he did not know that he was destined to have a hot wife, like all army men do. However, he trained hard and got through the school into the real army. He was unlucky it seems. There was war. Our military boy trained harder and was waiting to go to the front. He was struggling within himself, thinking about the glory a war can bring, the great experience that he will have and the pain and misery of course.

He knew not, he would not be called to take part in the war. It was not that he was incompetent, but the war was over. His country had lost the war. He did nt get the chance to take part, but he was still on the losing side.

Imagine yourself being him. Do you feel good? I don't. It feels strange to be him. Should you be happy that you didn't get killed in the war, should you be sad that you did not kill anyone? Should you be furious that you lost or would you bless your stars that at least you were still alive? What would you do? I would not feel anything special, than what I feel on any average day.

2 comments:

  1. a problem is best solved when left to itself...
    this is the only line which attracted me:D as m facing loads of dm;)
    neways...what mede you to write sumthing this mojo:p

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  2. well, i just wrote down somethings i felt while walking with prad :P

    ReplyDelete