- contd from Part 3
In India and probably most of the other places, I have seen women doing most of the cooking process. And, during my interactions over lunch, dinner or casual talks, when I ask them how much do they like this process and 90% of the time the answer comes as: "it is inevitable" or "is there any other go." These answers have evidently shown that they are masking their acceptance of a process of cooking as their norm and since there is no other go, they are continuing this process. When I question working men, why they are working? They answer that "we have to run the family" and that is the main reason why they are working and they don't really like to slog so much. And, when I ask what is that you want to do with the money that you earn? The answer always comes as - I have to buy a house, car and spend on all those items that they have advertised (and promised me happiness when I use them), spend on children's education, etc. Sometimes, I ask myself and others also - is really spending hefty amounts on children's education going to make them smarter, intelligent and better human beings? Then answer is always biased and there is no certainty. There is no guarantee that we as parents are going to build a better future generation in fulfilling certain norms, duties or responsibilities.
If we question this, from where this norm has come that only women should cook at home or men should keep working for their families? (Now a days I see 70% of women working in offices and 40% of men cooking at homes) - the clear answer is culture. Have we ever questioned - is this culture true? In the process of accepting various norms of a culture, we inadvertently impinged upon us an inevitable acceptance of many lies. And, in this process of inevitable acceptance, we started masking our emotions with "relationship names" and almost perfected the art of masking and the act of lying. One of the most important masking that we have perfected is accepting a lie and renaming that lie as "responsibility." I have seen individuals suffering, abusing themselves in fulfilling these "responsibilities."
Women are not always happy in cooking or working in offices, men are not always happy in working. Eventually what we started in avoiding this suffering is, masking this non-acceptance of suffering with worldly enjoyment. The new definition or norm of enjoyment that the world has successfully sold us as a big lie, and has more or less provided tools for masking comprises the following:
- to be contd in Part 5.
The Life of Masking
One of the aspect that I have observed in a lot of relationships is masking. This masking process is so much done that over a period of time, it has become a norm for individuals to live in this state and they have become so unconscious of this masking, and tend to continue to live in the lies that they have created for themselves or influenced upon.In India and probably most of the other places, I have seen women doing most of the cooking process. And, during my interactions over lunch, dinner or casual talks, when I ask them how much do they like this process and 90% of the time the answer comes as: "it is inevitable" or "is there any other go." These answers have evidently shown that they are masking their acceptance of a process of cooking as their norm and since there is no other go, they are continuing this process. When I question working men, why they are working? They answer that "we have to run the family" and that is the main reason why they are working and they don't really like to slog so much. And, when I ask what is that you want to do with the money that you earn? The answer always comes as - I have to buy a house, car and spend on all those items that they have advertised (and promised me happiness when I use them), spend on children's education, etc. Sometimes, I ask myself and others also - is really spending hefty amounts on children's education going to make them smarter, intelligent and better human beings? Then answer is always biased and there is no certainty. There is no guarantee that we as parents are going to build a better future generation in fulfilling certain norms, duties or responsibilities.
If we question this, from where this norm has come that only women should cook at home or men should keep working for their families? (Now a days I see 70% of women working in offices and 40% of men cooking at homes) - the clear answer is culture. Have we ever questioned - is this culture true? In the process of accepting various norms of a culture, we inadvertently impinged upon us an inevitable acceptance of many lies. And, in this process of inevitable acceptance, we started masking our emotions with "relationship names" and almost perfected the art of masking and the act of lying. One of the most important masking that we have perfected is accepting a lie and renaming that lie as "responsibility." I have seen individuals suffering, abusing themselves in fulfilling these "responsibilities."
Women are not always happy in cooking or working in offices, men are not always happy in working. Eventually what we started in avoiding this suffering is, masking this non-acceptance of suffering with worldly enjoyment. The new definition or norm of enjoyment that the world has successfully sold us as a big lie, and has more or less provided tools for masking comprises the following:
- Watching TV programs (it just does not matter how much BS they might show) and accept that as a norm and discuss on those topics they telecast;
- Watching movies;
- Visiting malls and spending heftily on junk non-healthy food (even though we can make good and healthy food at home);
- Instead of working at home, spend hefty amounts and work-out in gyms; (working at home has become drudgery, because we have bought so many items that marketing people have successfully made us to buy, that we no longer have much space to move around in the house and all those bought items have occupied 90% of the space and we feel suffocated to stay longer in the same house);
- Visit various places that advertisers have advertised and promised discounts for X-days, X-nights stay;
- Buying all those latest gadgets and show-case them to friends, relatives or colleagues and indirectly telling them that how much updated we are (but actually not realizing the truth, that we have become fools, lost our wisdom and succumbed to the advertisers and believed ourselves that we are buying happiness from a lie, which we will never get and eventually lead us to suffering);
- Visiting pubs to drink and dance and forgetting ourselves and know not what we are doing and why we are doing?
- Talking continuously either in person or on mobile phones on worldly matters and providing justifications on how hard we are trying, to live worldly lies while considering it as a metric for success and seeking validations from others;
- Succumbing to various other practices.
All of the above are being done just to escape from ourselves and avoiding the process of self acceptance and self-reflection.
- So, do we need to continue in the same way, generations after generations? or
- Is there a way that we stop this nonsensical and highly unreasonable life-style that we are living with us and change the DNA of the future generations?
- What is that we want to pass over to the future generations? - Suffering or freedom from all these unnecessary necessities?
It is high time for us to reflect within ourselves and find out what the Truth is about Life and its purpose.
Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of moon. - Rumi
- to be contd in Part 5.
No comments:
Post a Comment