Mindless, or not...

I left home today evening consumed by awe for Delhi, my home. I loved everything about it... the people, the ethos, the city lights, the city itself. I reached my destination, met my girl, talked about parallel universes, shared a drink... I had a question thrown upon me - 'What is your take on drugs?' 'I have been born to rehabilitate those in its shackles', I said. I believed it. As I was leaving, we stopped for a quick bite, take away from McDonald's. Right there, I was struck by my disillusioning sense of grandiosity, my impotency! A heavily drugged girl, no more than 20, propositioned me and my friends. She didn't seem like she was aware of herself, let alone her surroundings. With a slurred speech, she asked for some water. She was pale, her body was scarred and grimy. She would have been pretty if not in the throes of whatever it was that she was smoking or sniffing. I wondered what it was... couldn't have been marijuana. Perhaps it was cocaine. Or maybe LSD. Perhaps I could have found out if I would have sat down with her and had a conversation. But that would not have been possible, for she seemed to have been too consumed by lust at that moment - lust for what? Another fix, perhaps. Or just sex. It seemed that she didn't have any discretion at that moment. She could have taken on whatever came her way. As for me, all I felt for her was just pity, perhaps a tiny amount of anger too.

As I drove back home, I wondered what was it really that I was angry about? Was it that a potentially beautiful person was wasting a life out there just for immediate gratification? Or was it the realization that there were millions out there like her, losing their lives to chemicals, to an escape gone overboard? Or was it the reminder that unless willed on their own, so many of them would never actually seek help, and given that, there's nothing I can do, sitting in my chamber everyday; that actually my religion, that I hold to be so special, so true, is also like every other, just with a God that only a minority worships, a religion that actually fails each one of use at some point? Or was it just a flashback of a love long lost? I don't know. But what I do know is that I was forced to think of a choice that i did not make, and that I am proud of. I was forced to think of my own despair that I do not choose to temporarily escape by route of an induced hallucinatory fantasy land, but to live, every second of every day. My despair is the same as hers, and yours, only the content differs, the reflectiveness differs, the degree of responsibility and ownership differs. Who's happier? Neither. We're all sailing the same boat - the man who sleeps shivering on the streets on winter nights, the girl I encountered today, the woman who has abandoned her children because her husband's invectives made her dysfunctional, the boy who struggles to support his siblings after losing their parents in a plane crash, you, me. Then why the alienation?

No matter how much I rant about individual dispositions, circumstantial behaviours and all the jargon that I have learned, I will never be able to find a satisfactory answer to such self-destructive, anomalous behaviour. Except, the freedom of choice, that ironically all the people who execute it in such deleterious ways do not believe that they have. In fact, perhaps majority of us believe that we are subject to one thing or another, always outside of us. It is a sorry state, the extent to which we underestimate ourselves. The more I witness such conundrums around me, the more strongly I believe in Thenatos. Who are these people who have disavowed the Death Instinct? Perhaps they come from same the lineage of people who disavow any other form of instinctual behaviour - hunger, thirst, sex - too afraid to confront their condition in all its nakedness. Stiocs, that's what they call themselves! Under a facade of bravery and courage, they are actually punishing themselves for being alive, and everyone around them. The one and only thing that binds us together is despair. It is the fundamental requisite in any philosophy we choose to abide by; be it hedonism, or stoicism, or nihilism, or existentialism. Then why are we so afraid to confront it?

The only way to conquer despair is to live it!!!

The advent...

Driving back to my parents' house today, the festivity in the air dawned upon me... A little belatedly, one would think. Th festive season has been around for quite some time now - Navratras, Durga Puja.. and finally tomorrow, Dussehra. The fact that my last few visits home have been in mourning for my grandmother explains the absentia of festivities in my family. But what really struck me was the its insignificance in my life. As I drove through a massive traffic jam, presumably people going to visit their families and friends, I wondered if I would ever do the same. Or would I be going home from work on Dussehra or Diwali or Holi all my life, celebrating only the fact that I have a holiday from work... or perhaps not even that. I don't say this with a sense of loss. For me, Psychology is my religion, and I would rather spend my day working, or reading rather than burning effigies. But in our country, religion has been a necessity... for some an escape from the disappointments of reality, for some their impetus, for some a defence against their own morbid thoughts, while for others, only a matter of convenience. But to be an atheist in India, or even a non-practicing theist is a rarity. If not on one's own will, everyone is forced into some or other form of religious rites and rituals as a social obligation.



But today, I see a whole generation that is renouncing the traditions and customs. Each one does it in their own special way... each with its good and bad. The educated, urban Indian is no longer superstitious, doesn't believe in extravagant havans and pujas, or the dispensable customs and traditions that have been followed blindly for many generations. Call it lack of time, or just a lack of belief, religion is taking a backseat in everyone's lives. Dussehra, Diwali and other festivals are no longer celebrated for their mythological significance, but only in the spirit of a respite from the hustle - bustle of city life. At a personal level, this is perhaps a progressive change. We are moving from being a collectivistic nation to an individualistic nation. But this metamorphosis comes with the price of loosening of family values, a very high vulnerability of the propelling generation to various stressors, with compromised coping mechanisms, the development of a huge schism between personal needs and wishes, and social duty. The big price, however, that we have to pay for this is the departure from being social animals to becoming schizoid. Although reversible, this repurcussion is the weightiest for the ones who are actively living this change, practically split between multiple roles - of a professional, of a homemaker, a friend, a sister... And how does one cope up with this? By building a whole universe that is very private and too sacred to share with anyone, thus widening the gap between oneself and others... The Advent of The Sole Warrior!