#1 Why your life is a lie?

Just look inside and ask why.

May 17, 2021

We, as human beings, have a quest to find meaning, to find the real truth, the eternal truth, the one that matters. Even though most of us never acknowledge it, but all of us, even the atheists, yearn to find some meaning in the meaningless life and I was no exception. I remember the day after a deep meditative session, I saw my mental pattern for what it was and was stunned to realise that my self-worth was absolutely dependent on what others thought of me.

I had a priority list of people whose opinions I valued the most: my family, some mentors, friends and the like. I lived my life performing actions that I deemed would be liked by them. I even imagined their responses in my head, wanting to do what would get praises from them and torturing myself with guilt lashes for doing the opposite. Things went fine until what ‘I’ wanted to do, partially or wholly coincided with what they wanted me to do. It caused a strain within me when these paths began to diverge, until one day, I had to choose. At this divergence, I realised that there was an ‘I’, an original, unbiased voice, that could be my true calling, that had managed to survive despite all the suppression, that could be the conscience my mother told me about while enforcing that it’s the rightest voice and we should always follow it. And maybe, my habitual wanting for social approval might just completely overshadow it and they become so indistinguishable that what ‘I’ want becomes what they want me to be. I never asked her what to do when what she wants me to do is juxtaposed with what the ‘I’ wants. Confusing? Let the stickman guide you:

Funnily enough, these people never really verbalised their wants out of me but it happens all in my head, without me even knowing, my perceived images of what they consider applaud-worthy, based on my assessment of their personalities along with the imposed ideal images of the society, would just compel me to become that. I discussed it with a friend and he said, “We all live like that. Some people who ‘rebel’ are also living like that, anticipating what others want them to do, doing the opposite and feeling good. But even their actions are also a reaction to the society.”

I spiralled down in a deep, contemplative thought process, wondering if I would have ever done the things I did had I been all alone on the moon. Would I even work, let alone spend most of my waking hours working my ass off? It made me question everything. All of us, everyone around me was doing the exact same dance of chasing Power, Prestige, Money in some form or another, to show it to the ones who mattered the most or even to the world that they made it. But if your entire personality breathes on social approval which comes externally, then are you ever yourself? Aren’t you just an independent slave who might die as soon as the others pull the rug from under your feet? Taylor Swift disappeared for a year when the Kanye West debacle happened and she herself acknowledged to have rewired her thought process which was all about being likeable.

There’s a set of rules to follow everywhere, in the restaurant, at home, at a party, even on social media; an accepted behaviour and we all follow it independently while truly believing in our freedom. Well, you might ask what rules do you follow at your place where you’re as free as a bird?

It’s only when I got to know about the communal washroom during King Henry VIII’s reign, I realised that I had never questioned why do we poop alone? Like, some motivation from my peers would have really helped me during my constipated days. Jokes apart but the realisation of never questioning it and doing it like so many other things or maybe every other thing of my life was astounding.

If we dig a little deep into history, then during 1776 BC Hammurabi was the most famous king of Babylon which was the world’s biggest city, he had implemented the ‘Code of Hammurabi’ which lists about three-hundred judgements, the one I want to talk about is :

If a superior man should blind the eye of another superior man, they shall blind his eye.

This was the truth, the obvious truth, the understandable truth back then which the society believed, worshipped and followed relentlessly. Whereas, today we’re taught, “An eye for an eye makes everyone blind.” Who knows what the truth about the world is but at least we can acknowledge our own truths, at least we can make an attempt to be truthful to ourselves.

But we’re so into the rules, following them on auto-pilot that we just never question anything because there’s no time. Because if I don’t work eighteen hours a day, then my peers will race ahead of me. And I won’t be able to buy that house which I never live in or that luxurious car which again I’d never have the time to drive. Because there’s always a nicer car, a bigger house until you die. Even though I have enough money in the bank to survive many lifetimes (yes, them billionaires!), but I’d still keep running and chasing because I’m a compulsive worker, so is everybody and it’s NORMAL.

Sometimes, I think, maybe it was easier to do the Power, Prestige, Money dance my entire life. Of course, given enough hard work, time, attempts and a little bit of luck (that’s what the formula is right?), I would have achieved some degree of the promised success. But one little remark by that guy from the bar left me dumbfounded. Gauging these dreams, this constant urgency hanging at my throat all the time and he said,

“You don’t have a philosophy in life. You can chase these things but would they make you happy? Would they bring you peace and contentment? Maybe, you should read the Gita.”

I wanted to shove that Beer bottle in his face for being so condescending like he was doing anything different. But it was true, I was mindlessly chasing what everybody was chasing without even thinking why, the way I had prepared for the IIT entrance exam. When you can’t find an answer, just follow the herd. It’s much better than taking the road less travelled, much better than thinking originally. But then I thought, it wouldn’t hurt to have a philosophy while chasing things. What harm would reading Gita do anyway? I had already read it in bits and pieces before. Maybe, I missed something. Maybe, life doesn’t have to be a constant struggle. Maybe, it doesn’t have to be all materialistic desires or absolute asceticism. Maybe, there’s an attainable moderation somewhere in that messy maze. I had to find out.

Next one #2 Is the Bhagwat Gita all words and no action?

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