Disclaimer: I propose that you read this article when you are ready to read it. The readiness lies in our minds that promises to reason every line in this article and question it before you accept it. That way, my efforts to reach the seeking will be fruitful.
It took us 5-7 million years of reasoning and effort to see ourselves apart from our forefathers: Animals. Though Men learned to expunge lot of their innate animal instincts on their journey, of golden conquest of world as we know today, the darker side of him always lived with some of those instincts; potent, uncontrollable, that which breeds in the depth's of his subconscious. Though he learned to practice social etiquette, he also learned to kill for a living. Though he realized importance of courtship to find a ideal mate, he raped her occasionally to self assure his domination and control. The list is long. But one of those instincts went unnoticed. It became a part of a global consciousness.Fear was its only action and reaction. It was coined a name " The Herd Mentality".
In 1971, evolutionary biologist W.D Hamilton published a study named " Geometry for the selfish herd" on this instinct. It spoke about how each member of a herd tried to move towards the center of the herd so as to reduce the danger of being attacked first. Thus, the self-serving individuals' uncoordinated motions lead to an appearance of a herd moving "together". It was just an illusion. An illusion of Pseudo security that cocooned the actions that were taken to achieve it. Millions of years ago, the animals never knew it; sadly, millions of years later, we don't realize it.
It was evil, because it robbed men of one single entity he possessed but feared to use: his mind. Millions never acknowledged it, and those who did were burned at stake. Men were told that it was safe to trust another man's mistake and experience. They were warned of going against common beliefs. They were threatened whilst taking a new path. For ages, Men were fed and grown with social dogmas. They were infused with the most dreadful of all diseases: Fear.
Result? Well, as nakedly evident it is, Men transformed their lives to a running machine that only cared to impress his general society. He forgot the reason that he is. He forgot the driving force of his life. He preferred the quietness of his dreams than the waking hours he fought for a battle he never cared to win. It rendered a bewildered society that knew something was wrong somewhere, but could never point its selfish finger at the evil or raise heros to fight it. Per se, we are all in that society. The evil exists as a underlying fabric in our customs, traditions, value system, educational system, governments and most callously in our own decision making process.
Education as it was given and as it is still being, is our first concern. They teach you the principles of working machines, making codes that run them, of literature that recorded it, of scientific struggles that decorated the world as it today. But what they forgot is to infuse the blatant truth that all the achievements ever made and will be, were one man's individualism. One man's heroic battle to defy accepted standards and to be non compromising on his purpose of life. We had a handful of them; politicians, scientists, teachers, engineers, doctors, artists. But the Mob called them eccentric. The were kept apart. Women found them repulsive, because they were not "normal". We were not taught about Newton's life. We were not taught about what made Einstein so different was his life long struggle to believe in ideas that owned him. That's the crux. We were not taught that independent incorruptible pristine thinking and reasoning was our power. We were robbed of it. They taught with inspirational poems, but when it came to life's crucial moments, they never quoted the poem as eagerly as they quoted the neighbor's opinion.
Colleges produced graduates, Men who owned platinum cards in foreign banks, Men for whom brands were created, standards set and life smiled. But they were emaciated spiritually. They did what everyone around them did only that the execution was different. They never faced the dark rooms of life or loneliness in which a man faces himself and asks the most important question that there ever is : Am I happy? He feared it. He feared to be alone. He seeked companionship only to hide his despicable self smeared by his insecurities,that he built into himself , in the name of rotten self sacrifice or at the threat of loosing love. He got bored of companioships as a reliever, chose his criminal instincts to amuse him and pursued them with artfulness ;sadism was born. He found sexuality liberating;sex became a public symbol. He created set of ideals called "religion" to protect the root evil because religion brought masses and masses meant security. Everything that is evil today is because He feared to acknowledge the definition of his integrity.
A group of men laid rules, chose themselves to power, taxed their own people and called it government.Governments ruled, one after another,with candor speeches but without rectitude. They ruled with weapon of fear. Fear of being punished, fear of loosing, fear of being offended, fear of being not granted the life of comfortableness. Fear lies at the root of even the most democratic governments. The examples are plenty for those disturbed by it to observe. They robbed Men of his reasoning to believe, that he and he alone, was his own master, and that no rule however democratic, or forced by a group of men, can ever build his moral standards.
From the dressing trends to what we watch on TV are never our own complete choices. It is imposed by society. But, wait, it has some misconceiving goodness about it. Who among us are ready to face the unknown? Isnt it pleasure to seek comforts and accept standards because they are rewarding? We don't look outcast. We identify ourselves with the world around.Who among us has the will to be true to ourselves and hold his/her own integrity against all ideas and against all Men? We fear. Of loosing our job, of not getting comforts, of not marrying the women of our dreams, of leading a substandard life compared to our peers who have embraced the evil and patronize us. We search for our identities by claiming to belong to a particular religious faith, a political idea or through our disgraceful worship of Men who seldom deserve it; film stars, celebrities, political kings, sports men etc. Blind worship is wrong because you value the achievement of the receiver more than what you presume you are capable of and happily submit to it. Every time you say " That guy is remarkable; he's god!", you are subconsciously defeating your own ego against the ego of some man with or without reasons. Admiration is different from worship. Admire a man's/ideas' caliber, but avoid worshiping it and accepting it as your own identity. From the micro thoughts in choosing a life style over the other, to the macro thoughts of choosing a career, or a partner have all been poisoned with the need to please others. To please the mob. So that every waking hour, we remain in the cocoons that our ancestors build. Change is what we feared. We negotiated our values to avoid it, surpass it and to beat it exhausted to know that its the only permanent entity.
Every man is an idea. He stands for a set of values and is ingrained with self respect and integrity to preserve what he believes in. By integrity, we mean the force by which he upholds the idea he stands for. An idea is always unique. Since, ideas make us, the resulting actions too have to bear the genes of uniqueness. If a man discovers the truth of his idea, and painstakingly work with the beast of courage to achieve his truth, he becomes a force. If he knows his force, nothing else matters to him. He never cares to explain himself to anybody, nor stops to disturb them. He travels, step by step, moments ticking away, to what he believes he deserves for himself in this world. When he found the tangible truth he was, he chiseled his "will" and his "ego" to fight the war. His war was not against his fellow men. His conquest was of the world. He wanted to leave a part of him for the gratitude he considered his life was. He was the real example of selflessness.He did that with his gifted creativity. He created to satisfy himself. Thus, " A man's ego is his first right and satisfying it without inflicting pain on his fellow men was his duty and mark of true humanity".
Pure individualists fought a waging battle against this evil. They fought to preserve identities. They fought for their rights to exist without the mob affecting them. Their love for their work and value for their actions were their sole motive. They quit their comforts. They quit people who never understood their worth. They sat all alone, making plans, and executing them with religious fervor so that when the day ends, their smile was not pretentious, it was genuine. They set their own standards and cursed none. They were the real people who found happiness and contentment. You can see it in their eyes. Ask them, where the scars of their struggle were. Ask them, what they lost for that self worth they so dearly held up. Ask them their journey, and they'd smile.
Think! Why did we make choices we were forced to make? Why did you let some other person's "force" affect you life? Why didn't you struggle to find what your's was? What did u fear? Why do you feel bored of life? What is your definition of love for your work and your thoughts? Why did you still hold on to your job, when you knew it never matched what you deserved?Or that relationship with a person who never knew what you stood for? Are you trying to hide your creative and thinking impotency within the doors of dreary social norms that gives you nothing but pain in the end?
Fellowmen, its our right to be ourselves and to make a life we wish to live with pride. A revolution is started not by moving masses, but by self realization by every man who ever wanted to fight it. You don't need to change the system. Change yourselves and consequently the system will have no choice but to change its nature to suit you. I like to quote two great personalities here:
- Franklin D Roosevelt said “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
-Ayn Rand said "Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hoppless swaps of the not-quite,the not-yet and the not at all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in the lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists. Its real and its possible."
Be unique in your thoughts and quests because,
Though millions came to live, only few were called legends.
