Sunday, November 22, 2009

WHOA! I ROCK!!

Now how do you like my new attitude? I’m cool, I’m hot, I’m this I’m that, I’m blah blah blah blah. Web 2.0 has kept us busy exploiting our egos that we hardly notice how we make pompous, pretentious farts of ourselves. Yeah! Even things at ok-write-write have not been so right. My indulgences on Facebook, Twitter and everywhere else have siphoned off my attention. I’m logging back in here after ages. But now I’m back with more reason. And I have a point to make.

In utter humility, I hereby proclaim that Web 2.0 is not the only one to blame for this sorry state of affairs. I guess it all begins with the self. It happens to every one of us. It’s what one calls a Paradox.

While we can thump our chest in pride and tell the future that we’ve seen technology grow from vacuum tubes to blue-ray discs in our generation. That we’ve seen civilisation take one leap after another, effortlessly; we’d also have to endure the sham of our social and cultural inadequacies. We are so fond of listening to our own voices that we hardly hear the voice within. Ironically, we are capable of dubbing these inadequacies as impairments and even seeking professional assistance to cope with it (Not overcome it).

Phew! We - have taller buildings and shorter tempers; have wider freeways and narrow view points; spend more and have lesser; buy more and enjoy lesser. We - have bigger houses and smaller families; have multiplied our possessions and reduced our values; and the list is quite endless. We have even gone to the extent of adding years to life, ironically it has only made our years more lifeless. In short, we have learnt how to make a living, but not how to have a life. Again, Paradox.

If you are somewhat impressed with what you’re reading, you have all the reason to shoot a mail and tell me how impressed you are. But don’t hurry. Not so fast. These pearls of wisdom have done their rounds on the Internet for almost a decade now. All you need to do is copy this “The paradox of our time in history” and Google it. Never mind the number of versions floating around or the number of authors claiming stake. Do take the effort to read the original passage; it’s definitely nicer than my hurried shower of (attempted) intelligence.

Coming back to my original point of discussion – “The Paradox” at a cursory glance may seem like a new drug combination of Paracetamol and Amoxicillin. Pardon my poor humour, but our lives are so milled to the pill. We are constantly on the lookout for cures and we are so engrossed in it that we don’t realise we are responsible for the maladies ourselves. First we stress ourselves beyond reasonable levels, then pop pills to party and de-stress. Then another one to trigger the libido; then one more to make up for the forgotten protection: Finally after the shit hits the ceiling, there’s also consolation “Take a Chill Pill. Dude”.

But end of the day, we also want to have children. But that’s because we are afraid of being rated impotent. Social stigma you see. Even when we are technically incapable of having children, we collate eggs and sperms; fertilise them in test tubes and hire surrogate mothers to bear them. Twins, Triplets, Quadruplets. We behave like spoilt kids in the ice cream bar.

Brangelina: Nice. But adoption isn’t for us to adopt. Isn’t it?

We have mastered the art of making suns of our egos in the galaxies of our minds. Some of us have even modified our DNAs in mindless pursuit of social acceptance: And before we even realise, we die slow and painful deaths, choking in own karma while we’re still alive.

Gone are the days of valiant men who rode horse-back and wielded swords to fight for their honour? Today men are of two kinds: paper politicians and e-mail terrorists. And neither knows honour. Our insecurities and inefficiencies have lengthened our working hours. Then for work-life balance we turn to the Gurus. The Matas and Swamis (and their scandals) of this world never seem to be out of circulation. Their list is growing at an alarming rate (multiplying faster than bunny rabbits).

And if all this was not enough, we also have Self-improvement and Self-help Experts, along with their mutual admiration societies adding to the chaos. Not that I loathe or despise the gurus or experts. What I despise is the lack of introspection. BTW how do you like this name? Write-ananda??