Small Minds

Globalisation….glocalisation….glocal…there are so many jargons to describe the ever increasing India’s move towards liberalization.. it is almost 16 years that right from politicians to laymen talking about how India is growing in the global economy. The Indian parents say that they never ever heard about the salary what the Indian youth are earning now…. Do all these have any impact on the society? Of course… I think there can be anyone who would think pessimistically for this question. But what had this transformation do to the society? Has it become more individualistic? Some humanists argue that individualism is an essential characteristic of a developed economy. They say that as India is in the process of economic development, such cultural changes or rather shocks are inevitable ingredient in the transformation phase. Narrow thinking in terms of individualism…everything happens because of self.. and “don’t care attitude”.  I happened to see this quotation in one of the street shops…”Don’t tell your problems to others, because 70% of them are not bothered and the rest 30% would be happy”…..I was just thinking of this for a while and tried to comprehend the reason why the author would have written such a rude and crude statement. Especially in this world where every one treats the other one as a competitor and threat to the other person’s survival which starts right from kindergarten and continues in the work environment and sometimesin person life as well. As a matter of fact, this thought leads to braggy attitude in the work space and creates tension, anxiety and people seem to be perturbed all the time. Concern for others is slowly fading away and there might be a situation where would be some workshops regarding the same. Why are we going in such an inhuman path? Is to cover ourselves from societal evils or is it just for being by oneself? We need not have to get transformed to a mahatma; we definitely can be reasonable person to a certain extent in order to maintain our human status…

Purpose of BEING

Being literate..Being independent..Being confident..Being intelligent..Being successful..Being happy..Being smart..Being jovial..Being “I am what I am”.. In this routine life, “being” is the word replaced for “living”. Thesaurus says that BEING is a state of act or existence. Animals exist in this world…But humans are meant to live..The current wave of individualism along with the spurge of opportunities to the youth has made them feel successful. And all the “beings” stated above makes them feel that they have achieved success and so they are capable of many things in life. YES…of course that is true..but only partial. The befogged reality is something different and that needs human effort to LIVE the life rather than being in existence. 

My friend happened to tell me about a book, “The ant and the elephant: Leadership for the Self” by Vince Poscente. I tried correlating my thoughts with that of the author and came up with some logical vantage point. The author says that humans exist in this world like an ant on an elephant. If the ant wants to move in east direction while the elephant moves in the opposite direction, then the ant does not get anywhere. Same way, the ant is the conscious mind and the elephant is the sub conscious mind. Humans are in a constant struggle between the both and suddenly they realize that we don’t go anywhere and become dejected and depressed and start complaining about life, people, work, place, etc..etc..Why don’t we just pause and comprehend where we are, what we are doing, where we are going and what we need in this life. Training the conscious mind (elephant) to go along the dreams and wishes of the subconscious mind (ant) is the trick. Every individual will have and can find their own way of finding purpose of their existence.

Do we need a Thenali Raman Today?

We are what we are in terms economy, society, ethics, value, etc because of our fore runners’ major contribution to the society. Some of them knew that they are doing good for the economy while many of them dont have a clue of what they are doing, but still they were doing just because it was a part of their dharma.. But there were some catalysts in the society who were accelerating the progress of the society. On such character is Thenali Raman who served as the court jester in Krishnadeva raya’s Vijayanagara empire. Once we closely observe the characteristics of Thenali Raman, we can view an eccentric personality. He is jovial, made all kinds of mockery and even made the King furious many times. But the intent behind Thenali’s acts had a purpose….that purpose was to do something good for the human race..to make them realise that they were still rational beings.Coming to the modern era…what we are now…Are we still rational beings? Do we still understand  and sensitize others which is an essential quality of humanity or do we need a Thenali Raman Today to make us realize the way we are heading this human race?

Empowerment …

The human race has gone through tremendous ups and downs and has a great legacy. We are in an era where the respect for individuals is going down and more people are becoming more vivid and actually……they are getting intellectually transformed. But still do values and ethics still linger around these gigantic intellectually muscled creatures? Ethics and values are integral part of culture…Are these jargons still valid in today’s context?

The field of ethics, also called moral philosophy, involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior. In today’s context, the society is becoming more individualistic and so are the ethics. Each individual has their own reasons for their behavior whether right or wrong because their argument is that the good and bad are subjective terms and depend on various factors such as situations, societal pressures, etc. But there should be a common threshold to have any amount of truthiness…There might be some who justify their behaviors with the fact that the entire society is doing it and so am I.

Two things that are essential in life are Respect and Unselfishness..Respect would include respect to others (younger or elder, inferior or superior, male or female), respect to the society, rules, constitution, environment. Ultimately respect to each and every matter and not interrrupting their normal way of action, but inducing the way they can function better. The second part is unselfishness. Again being unselfish is an anomaly. As said by many of the psychologists and economists, human beings are selfish in nature and this matches with the Darwin’s evolution theoy – “survival of the fittest”. But as educated human beings we should realize that we are being endowed with a logical frame of mind which should serve societal cause. There is nothing wrong in being selfish. But there is an extent of being selfish. The selfish character should end when any of the elements to whom we should show respect is affected severely in a way that they are unable to get back to their normal course of action.

Oh! forgot to mention why the article title is empowerment! This article is dedicated to the souls who want to get consciously empowered for societal evolution….