Sometimes,it appears that generally speaking, we are a generation of Nature's spoilt ugly brats of Nature, with no gratitude and long lists of grievances, each with a million reasons to sulk. It is a royal daily march of imperial "Me" grouses.
Sometimes, it must get sickening even for mother nature to keep hearing this 'MeMeMe' cacophony day after day, generation after generation. If I were mother and had to put up with me as son with my current temper and conduct I would be sorry at what I produced - a mass of ugly attitude walking on two legs, self-centric - with eternally outraged arrogance as its sole reason for theatricals and sickening grief, shedding tears into five star hotel beds or writing poems on poverty on gadgets that a whole years earnings of a majority of the inmates here.
Yesterday, a friend offered to take me on an all expenses paid trip around Latin America to make me forget my woes - one of which is financial stress !!
Yet Mother forgives me and I am allowed to feel aggrieved and outraged even as I see terminal stage cancer patients and many other less fortunate co-habitants on earth bravely smiling and even trying to bring smiles to others' faces.
Human kind can be incredibly petty, exasperating - a crowd of Insolent kids of nature's undeserved plenty who need no excuse to be always complaining . My rights,my respect,my happiness, my this,my that -- at times,life seems to be nothing more than a litany of "Me" rituals.
And when I go to a library, I find long rows upon rows of books on how to "value my self respect, how to demand my rights, who to claim my happiness, how to stand up for myself. Yes, even on how to "stand up for myself". I was wondering,"Is there truly nothing else that I can be taught to stand up for.? Is there no one else whose rights I can claim for him? Isn't there happiness of someone other than me for which I can be taught to forgo my own."
I didn't find much. But I found a few titles which spoke of how not to allow the world to walk over me, how not to let others - even friends - to take me for granted ! And I found another which spoke of eastern philosophies of acceptance as a choice as "defeatist.".
I live in a world proud of its "Me Culture" and worried that its children might not learn enough about how to 'stand up for their rights." God! In this day and age, we are still worried about 'my rights'. It even talks of Me time as a treasure. Me with me thinking of me enjoying me in love with me planning for me,protecting me , fighting for me - How sublime! How uplifting!
The irony is that I am yet to come across a "Me culturist" who is happy. Each one on this planet is groaning over his Me outraged by a certain other's act, a certain look, a certain attitude, a certain thought or lack of it and even a certain silence of another.. And consequently, 'ignorant armies clash by night' on this 'darkling plain.'
Is there nothing to salvage this landscape and liberate it from this fatal narcissist grip.?
Can nothing redeem this landscape of despairing arrogance and this religion in which Me is the Omnipotent God? May be, a little twinkle, a little gently floating glow amid all this darkness.It does appear ever so briefly after a stretch of ages. And then we are reminded that all is not lost. Even amid this ugly , thick and stinking darkness infested with Me-fleas, there is a certain Bhagat Pooran Singh worthy of Harmandar, a certain Theresa who desires to turn a city of misery into city of joy, a certain Jesus worthy of a Mariam's lap, a certain Guru Gobind Singh willing to sing the songs of love after hatred had claimed all his family.
A moment lifted out of all-enveloping stink, a moment that rises above this decaying darkness and shines as a little star far above this landscape, not so much to dispel darkness as to point a way out of it - this moment, this messenger of light compensates for the self-enveloping darkness.
.
Sometimes, it must get sickening even for mother nature to keep hearing this 'MeMeMe' cacophony day after day, generation after generation. If I were mother and had to put up with me as son with my current temper and conduct I would be sorry at what I produced - a mass of ugly attitude walking on two legs, self-centric - with eternally outraged arrogance as its sole reason for theatricals and sickening grief, shedding tears into five star hotel beds or writing poems on poverty on gadgets that a whole years earnings of a majority of the inmates here.
Yesterday, a friend offered to take me on an all expenses paid trip around Latin America to make me forget my woes - one of which is financial stress !!
Yet Mother forgives me and I am allowed to feel aggrieved and outraged even as I see terminal stage cancer patients and many other less fortunate co-habitants on earth bravely smiling and even trying to bring smiles to others' faces.
Human kind can be incredibly petty, exasperating - a crowd of Insolent kids of nature's undeserved plenty who need no excuse to be always complaining . My rights,my respect,my happiness, my this,my that -- at times,life seems to be nothing more than a litany of "Me" rituals.
And when I go to a library, I find long rows upon rows of books on how to "value my self respect, how to demand my rights, who to claim my happiness, how to stand up for myself. Yes, even on how to "stand up for myself". I was wondering,"Is there truly nothing else that I can be taught to stand up for.? Is there no one else whose rights I can claim for him? Isn't there happiness of someone other than me for which I can be taught to forgo my own."
I didn't find much. But I found a few titles which spoke of how not to allow the world to walk over me, how not to let others - even friends - to take me for granted ! And I found another which spoke of eastern philosophies of acceptance as a choice as "defeatist.".
I live in a world proud of its "Me Culture" and worried that its children might not learn enough about how to 'stand up for their rights." God! In this day and age, we are still worried about 'my rights'. It even talks of Me time as a treasure. Me with me thinking of me enjoying me in love with me planning for me,protecting me , fighting for me - How sublime! How uplifting!
The irony is that I am yet to come across a "Me culturist" who is happy. Each one on this planet is groaning over his Me outraged by a certain other's act, a certain look, a certain attitude, a certain thought or lack of it and even a certain silence of another.. And consequently, 'ignorant armies clash by night' on this 'darkling plain.'
Is there nothing to salvage this landscape and liberate it from this fatal narcissist grip.?
Can nothing redeem this landscape of despairing arrogance and this religion in which Me is the Omnipotent God? May be, a little twinkle, a little gently floating glow amid all this darkness.It does appear ever so briefly after a stretch of ages. And then we are reminded that all is not lost. Even amid this ugly , thick and stinking darkness infested with Me-fleas, there is a certain Bhagat Pooran Singh worthy of Harmandar, a certain Theresa who desires to turn a city of misery into city of joy, a certain Jesus worthy of a Mariam's lap, a certain Guru Gobind Singh willing to sing the songs of love after hatred had claimed all his family.
A moment lifted out of all-enveloping stink, a moment that rises above this decaying darkness and shines as a little star far above this landscape, not so much to dispel darkness as to point a way out of it - this moment, this messenger of light compensates for the self-enveloping darkness.
.
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