Emotional Independence – Part I

Writing this when my thoughts are flowing free. Felt like a small leaf floating on the surface of an enormous lake of emotions. In fact, this is the feeling that confronts me every now and then.


Like a piece of wood we are pulled by the sheer force of the culture or Society River that our ancestors have started in some hill side or a cave. All our actions are purely orchestrated reactions based on what our surroundings have thought us. Lot of great philosophers describe our plight as a puppet tied to one end of a string whose other end is with an unknown force commonly called as god.

My belief is that we all have just made puppets out of ourselves. We have deliberately tied ourselves to many strings not one. We didn’t stop there. We have given the other end of that string to known man made forces called, social responsibilities and compulsions.

Think about this. Born free we are. Then we learn a lot of things from our surroundings and slowly we start believing that this is the way to go as almost all goats are going that way. In all the troubles that we encounter till we walk this earth, we only console ourselves saying that what we are going through is only common. Never would we think why we should go through this. Why should anyone go through this?

Examples: Religion, Education, Profession, Ethics, Morals, Survival, Marriage ........the list is long.

Why can’t we just be honest to ourselves and do what our conscience is telling us? We do everything as expected by others and be frustrated. If you are trying to do everything to please others then we must be pleased seeing others pleased. If that is not the case, then we must start living in the way that will please us and not care about others. Easier said than done. I know. Though I talk a lot about being free, I am still an obedient societal creature.

Since our birth we have been taught to be strictly boundary oriented and not to cross that and do whatever you want within that boundary as long as you satisfy these two million rules. May be that is why we started imagining our almighty as boundless which will make him/her so admirable and desirable.

May be, someone reading all my articles may call me an antisocial! I can’t disagree with them.
 
--Satish