A light in the darkness

Why am I talking about masks and labels? I do not wear one.  Let us explore. Sociology studies man in his social environment. It says that man has many roles to play when he is inhabiting this earth. He acts like a father, son, husband, manager, leader, etc. He is not just one person but many in one. What is this?  Let me introduce you to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung and his take on the various roles we play. He says that we are not born as a blank slate where we can write anything. He introduced the concept of archetypes . Archetypes are a universal, inborn eidolon of a person, their behaviors and personalities that ultimately influence their behavior. In short, it is the innate human knowledge that is transferred from our ancestors. One such archetype is  "persona," which means mask. He elaborates, saying that persona is the way we present ourselves to the world, i.e., the innumerable social masks we don among various groups and situations. Over time, we get so stuck in th

We are all quite well versed in the benefits of information technology in our lives. Isn't it? So I will directly jump into how we hide from ourselves using information technology.  Planning to write about this topic drew me to one of the most famous practices I have heard: "When you get up in the morning, we should  see our palms first. " This had been our ritual for ages. Do you all remember this? I can hear a faint no.  Around fifteen years ago, when I had a dumb phone, my usual ritual was to get up, pray, meditate, reflect on the day, get energized, and begin the day. This practice has helped me a lot to keep myself calm and composed, and at the same time, it has always helped me to connect to myself. Without fail, I used to do this every day, but now my day begins with WhatsApp, Google, and Youtube. Even after checking messages, I do sit for prayer and meditation; my eyes are always on the phone, and just one popup and my heart beating, 'What's the message?&#

We all hear you repent for your sins, and they will be forgiven. We all plan to dip in the Ganges and wash away our sins.  I began my post with these words because, somewhere within, we all feel we are not always right. Our inner conscience had been at work to check our action records and certify whether we were right or wrong. The word guilt is not new to us. The Merriam-Webster  dictionary  defines it as: the fact of  having committed a breach of conduct, especially violating the law and involving a penalty; the state of one who has  committed an offense, especially consciously. So, in our guilt, we have committed either a breach or an offense that calls for punishment.  I was hastily walking on the railway platform as I arrived late to board my train, and I struck an old lady who fell down. Here, it was my mistake, due to which the other person suffered. So, I feel guilty for hurting this old lady. I stop by there, comfort her, and say sorry to her to express my infelt regret for

Today, I will open my conversation with Noel Fielding's quote:  "Reality depresses me, and I need to find fantasy worlds to escape them." We are all in this one or the other day. The real thing makes us mad and overwhelms us. Many times, we find it hard to take and feel we are on the verge of breaking down. Am I right or not? Let me emphasize this with an example. I remember my school days when we had to read a whole book for exams. It was really tiring and stressful. At times, I used to feel that the lives of dogs and cats were much better than mine because they did not have to study. I used to wish I was born like them during my exams. This was my way of running away from reality by fantasizing about my world. So, all the while, I was dreaming of being a dog, which gave me much relaxation over the overwhelming stress that was pressing on me. The main illusion of all these voluntary fantasies is that we are in control of the external event. I think Richard Ricks words ca

We are all aware of what it means to be a failure. Right. When we fail, we all feel low, dejected, and even incapable for a while, but after this initial phase of failure, we try to find out ways to encourage ourselves to fight this failure and fathom it. For example, I still remember my first day when I pricked my friend to draw blood. It did not come, and she was feeling so much pain. Fear struck me about whether I would do it or not. A small corner in my brain has woven beautiful stories of failures and is saying to me constantly: "You cannot do it.  You are not capable of it.  See, your syringe failed to prick the nerve, so there was no blood.  Leave it. It is not your cup of tea.  First, learn better, then focus on the practical. You are useless." Later on, my friend, who herself was good at these, taught me how to find veins and then prick and collect blood. I could do it myself as well. This only happened because I did not submit to the lies that were rumbling in my he

 We are all familiar with forgetting.  The fight that you had with your friend ruined your friendship. You just want to erase it from your memory. The guilt of not being able to take good care of your parents sucks you up, and so you don't want to remember. War veterans often face PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and find it difficult to live a normal life. They earnestly seek a delete button to put an end to all raging and haunting memories. There are many such small, yet painful, memories that we do not want to remember. So, we find that forgetting has a pretty good track record of maintaining peace and harmony in our lives. These reminds me of Fredrich Nietzsche words: "Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all." School days are another example. Sitting in the examination hall and stressing a lot to remember what I studied on that page to grab 10 marks. In the cultural evening, "I forgot my dialogue seeing the big crowd" is not uncommon.

The fast-paced life we have chosen steals every quality that makes us whole. Peace is the first of them all. Under its shade, life is beautiful. In the whole of my life, I only heard people say, I have to do this, I have no time to rest, etc. No one ever mentions that I need to focus on my peace. Over time, I too became a jerk like that.  If you are in the right place, you have peace. If you are doing this right, you will have calmness. If you know what you have to do, you don't need to shout to get things executed; rather, you will patiently direct your subordinates so that the job is done successfully. Nowhere did you need to be arrogant. This clearly shows that we wear the mask of arrogance to hide something. Let us explore the hidden nature of arrogance. At this point, I would like to quote the words of an anonymous author:   "Arrogance requires advertisement. Confidence speaks for itself."   We are arrogant because we want people to see us as I have portrayed us