You are no lone wolf. Stop telling yourself that you are different. You might claim that words will never hurt you; you might as well claim to be living in Mars and hosting Zeus and his pantheon of Gods for tea everyday. Admit it. You crave for acceptance. Those likes on facebook and those retweets on twitter light up your face. All those times your manager truly praised your work or some colleague nominated you for a spot award, there was a tinge of pure joy and excitement flowing through your veins.
At the end of the day, whatever way you look at it, we are all apes. We learn by imitating. If you have ever seen a child pick up language, you know what I am talking about. If it is society that shapes us, are we just pawns hoping that one day we might reach the end and become queens and bishops? Unfortunately no; Cinderella’s dreams generally do not come true in real life and the one of the evil twin sisters always gets the prince. Sooner or later, the masks we wear to perform the pantomime that society demands of us comes back to define us and our perception about ourselves.
What does it feel to wake up and head to work knowing that you will end up doing the same thing tomorrow, the next week and the week after, the next year and perhaps years to come until you retire to take up gardening or writing letters to newspaper editors? Have you ever woken up and told yourself that today you will tell your boss to go f**k himself, quit your job and just travel around the world until the end of days. What am I raving about? Everyone has those days…
I just came to know about a guy who plays around a dozen sports and is very good at most, is a top notch sniper and a Beretta pistol shooter, digs wells for villages without access to clean water, builds classrooms in villages and whose dream is to visit more countries than his age. Also before I forget, he once drove an auto from Chennai to Mumbai and is currently teaching in a school in Ladakh. Talk about developing a multifaceted personality... When I came to know about this, something inside me stirred, the wanderlust that society and I had managed to talk into submission would not remain silent anymore. It screamed out that I should go out, live a life of adventure and explore the world with the same curiosity that drove our ancestors out of Africa. Alas, the moment passes and I always wake up. Not literally because I am already wide awake, but because I am getting late for office.
So what about my free will? Was my destiny pre-determined based on the alignment of stars and planets the moment I was born? When was the last time I did something just to prove to myself that I am not living in a Matrix-like-world? When was the last time I forgot about society, its rigid rules and firm machinations and did something for pure thrill? The question I ask myself and you is this - when was the last time you did something crazy?
At the end of the day, whatever way you look at it, we are all apes. We learn by imitating. If you have ever seen a child pick up language, you know what I am talking about. If it is society that shapes us, are we just pawns hoping that one day we might reach the end and become queens and bishops? Unfortunately no; Cinderella’s dreams generally do not come true in real life and the one of the evil twin sisters always gets the prince. Sooner or later, the masks we wear to perform the pantomime that society demands of us comes back to define us and our perception about ourselves.
What does it feel to wake up and head to work knowing that you will end up doing the same thing tomorrow, the next week and the week after, the next year and perhaps years to come until you retire to take up gardening or writing letters to newspaper editors? Have you ever woken up and told yourself that today you will tell your boss to go f**k himself, quit your job and just travel around the world until the end of days. What am I raving about? Everyone has those days…
I just came to know about a guy who plays around a dozen sports and is very good at most, is a top notch sniper and a Beretta pistol shooter, digs wells for villages without access to clean water, builds classrooms in villages and whose dream is to visit more countries than his age. Also before I forget, he once drove an auto from Chennai to Mumbai and is currently teaching in a school in Ladakh. Talk about developing a multifaceted personality... When I came to know about this, something inside me stirred, the wanderlust that society and I had managed to talk into submission would not remain silent anymore. It screamed out that I should go out, live a life of adventure and explore the world with the same curiosity that drove our ancestors out of Africa. Alas, the moment passes and I always wake up. Not literally because I am already wide awake, but because I am getting late for office.
So what about my free will? Was my destiny pre-determined based on the alignment of stars and planets the moment I was born? When was the last time I did something just to prove to myself that I am not living in a Matrix-like-world? When was the last time I forgot about society, its rigid rules and firm machinations and did something for pure thrill? The question I ask myself and you is this - when was the last time you did something crazy?
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