Who are we ???

Thanks to the all quarter end slow down and my metaphorical salt mine running smoothly without hiccups the past few days have really been a breeze. I’ve had no time for doing anything at all other than lounge around and chill out, from when I’m making a mental list of all the things I need to accomplish by end of year, call it my own Bucket List (Great movie by the way). Decorating my new apartment seems to be on the top of the list. All about my dreams about future new house and big ass plasma entertainment center on some other blog post… for today its something else on my mind. This whole void in my stupidly hectic schedule has given me tons of time for thinking of all kinds of things, ranging from work to my future and also why I seem to perpetually be in a state of abeyance when it comes to deciding just what I should do next…in more senses of time than one.

One thing that has stood out more than most others in this time though, has been the fact that just about everyone in the current generation – and that includes me – seems to move less from one state of mind to another and more from one complaint to another. It’s a malaise that is so widespread that I don’t think we even notice it ourselves. It sets in real early of course and for that, we can thank our fantabulous education system and the Indian obsession with academics and qualifications.

For more time than I care to recall, I have moved from one goal to another…constantly accompanied by a growing and gnawing feeling of dissatisfaction. There’s been only one phase in my life when I can’t recall having felt any such emotion and needless to say, that didn’t last too long either. Perfidious as it sounds but won’t you say that our generation is losing the sight of their desires.

I’m not saying that it’s wrong to be dissatisfied or to have high aims. I happen to endorse aiming high. It’s just that I feel that at a certain point we tend to allow the dissatisfaction to cloud our judgment in gauging just what is causing the feeling. It’s endemic really and it’s not a very nice thing to see happening around you – particularly when you start feeling that perhaps you’re prey to the same syndrome yourself…

One thing that has almost always made me laugh is reading these celebrity interviews where the interviewee declares that he or she absolutely detests hypocrites. Oh yeah? Awesome mate…ironic, but good for ya ;-). The sad part of course is that the older people grow and the further they drift apart, particularly geographically, the more hypocritical they seemingly become. Helps me smile a bit once in a while to think of it, but that’s the way things are.

The conclusion I have reached on that of course, is that the greater the time span since your last interaction and the more courses you’ve done since then, the more hypocrisy you will be privileged to be witness to. Like people claiming to be your best buddies after having thoroughly despised you over the course of half a lifetime.

It seems as if people are so diffident about themselves that they can’t even decide whom they like and whom they don’t. They seem so lost that at times you begin to wonder whether they are indeed the ones of whom it was so appropriately said that they are to be pitied rather than censured. Come to think of it I don’t even get why companionship is so highly over rated. Why does one have to prove every bit of his stand over and over again? Can’t he be doubtful and still be happy. Can’t he spend the years learning and when 40 stands up to say that I am a self made man.

Yet, we move on…and then the realization hits home that for some reason, it seems to be this very hypocrisy that gets people places. Look down upon it if you will. Frown upon those you deem to be that way or the ones you term sycophants…but after a certain point of time, people start saying it’s jealousy that causes it…and it’s not because they’re tired of hearing you say what you think…it’s mainly for they’ve understood and chosen the course they wish to follow. Would you care to do it? Your call. Do you do it already? Think and the answer may shock you…

That of course brings one back a full circle to the question of just who you are! Are you the person you imagine when you’re with yourself? Are you the person the ones around you think you are? Or are you just an elusive construct that nobody including you ever gets to see?

At the end of the day, it all depends on the confidence one places in oneself. That’ what will determine the definition one chooses to choose, so to speak. It’s a function of the person one wishes one was correlated to the person one has been successful at projecting and of course, the person one realizes as perhaps existing…with the twist of course coming from the element of honesty one is willing to throw in when pronouncing judgment in each of these areas.

Ah well, as Bruce Dickinson once said, “Maybe someday I’ll be an honest man. Upto now, I’ve done the best I can…” Wasted Years indeed…