Happy independence

How free are you?  You do not have bars on your gates. You can walk, eat, breathe, talk...pretty free you might think.

Before doing even the little things there are so many thoughts that cross our minds. Can we for instance, for an urgent matter leave a class of a subject we don't have much marks in, without saying anything? We usually think, 'How will the lecturer take it', 'What will my friend think happened'. And not just about this one moment during class. Ask yourself, how easily you do even tiniest things during your day. Can you wear the same dress on two different parties on consecutive days? Can you wear the same shirt to office for days if it is clean? Can you wear your old shoes with holes in it outside, if they are still comfortable? Don't you think about your make-up, those extra chemicals for your hair, how does our car look in front of that Audi? How necessary it is for you to have a fancy phone, just to not feel conscious when you take it out of your pocket? We think about a million things before making a decision. We are too much worried about our "image". We are tied up to unseen strings that I will come to later. You think you are not?

Then imagine me with yourself like this. I just snatched your mobile phone and deleted all your text folders, your images, family videos, notes, apps, games (not songs or contacts, 'cause that would be stupid).
Then I took your hard drive and deleted its contents and backup. Your season collections, movies, even more photos and documents. How long will you stand by let me do it? Will I make you worry then?

No?
Okay. Forgive me for intrusion but I just broke in your home or hostel room or office and I have started tearing the place apart. Your expensive clock, your wall paint, the rare vase, that modern art painting, that family photo with you smiling, ( not your office or study material, 'cause I don't want you get fired), the really comfortable sofa. I am destroying everything before your eyes. All the china you were gifted on your wedding, all the sculptures for decorations, the glass dining table, television. You most probably will call the police by now. Charge me with sabotaging your possessions without reason. "Possessions". Why? Because you have spent money on it. "Money", the digits you have scored with your hard work and blood, which makes your "status" in the neighborhood.

Think about it the other way, even though you would have felt terrible if you had lost your phone or broken your laptop or all of what I broke above in some mishap but you would have still lived through it. Point is are you free enough? Are these just a tool to make your tasks easier or have they become something more?

Sub consciously we have put so much weight on ourselves that it is no longer possible to leave the ground. The sooner you learn to minimize it, the sooner you can take off.

“If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders - What would you tell him?"
I…don't know. What…could he do? What would you tell him?"
To shrug.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

It is essential to understand the difference I am trying to make between two different approaches. I am not the kind of person who would tell you not to love or to make new relations. Instead I insist you to cherish them, live them, nurture them and devote yourself completely. Let it be for the person and for you but not for any other soul in the universe. But understand, love is meant to be freedom and not a shackle. If you love only to seek something it is not love but a trade and only in trade, arguments and fights arises. Love is simple with no hidden conditions and is understanding. You don't feel the need to explain in love, no need for excuse, no need to make your point right...it is much above all that.

There are so many rules we have made for ourselves living in our society, watching others, many of them just don't have any reason behind them. We spend our lives trying to blend in with all of the people, because we do not want to be looked upon as different, we are afraid of that. We end up blaming the society if things don't turn out how we want, not knowing, it was us who chose to follow it in the first place.

If only we could just give all the complications up. It will be so exhilarating...just like when it feels after you excrete in the morning something you ate which you should not have. So much lighter. And then only you could live without caring needlessly. Imagine yourself free of everything, going some distant secluded place you always wanted to go without thinking about how will you get there, just enjoying the way, sunlight on your face, wind in your hair without a bit of worry. Why can't we make every trip  like that? Why can't we have this everyday?

'Work hard and score first position in class', they teach us.
Why?
'So that you will be seen as intelligent'.
What's wrong with second exactly?
'It is for a brighter future'.
('Actually, we just want you to be ahead of Mr and Mrs X's son')

'Work hard and get in a good college, your preference to the course comes next'.
What's wrong with the college I like?
'Its for a brighter future'.
('So that we can tell everyone you are in that college'.)

'Work hard for your placement'.
What's wrong with what I want to do?
'Its for a brighter future'.
('So that we can tell everyone you work in that big organization')

'Work hard in your office'.
Why?
'So that you can get better pay check'.
What's wrong with my pay check?
'Its for a brighter future'.
('So that we can say you earn that much').

'Marry this person'.
Why?
'He comes from a family with "status" '.
Whats wrong with the person I love?
'Its for a brighter future'.
('Actually, more than your future, we want the "respect").

We spend most part of our life waiting to be "successful", working hard towards that "bright future". We even forget to ask anyone...what the hell is exactly successful?
We always compete with the person we are with, hope to become the person above us, look down upon the person below us. When was the last time we looked at ourselves with out comparing it with others? Know what we are alone? About our qualities and mistakes. When did we worked on something without thinking of its reward, return or its value in the future?

Great people always tell us to learn from nature. Apart from the beauty of it I enjoy, there is something it really teaches us. I saw a tree and had this bizarre thought. Those simple, kind, selfless, living beings  spend all their years doing something so that others can breathe. They don't even get to move, their existence is to make other survive and what happens to them? They get cut down, they get converted into decoration, they get burned, they get eaten. Then I saw a flock of goat, they were all walking behind each other, trying to be the same. They end up as a delicious dish. Then I saw a dog and you know what makes dogs great? Not the domestic, faithful ones but the wild ones. They do not give a shit about anything. They pee where-ever they want, eat whatever they want, without thinking, roam around feeling like a boss. When ever I see one of them, tongue hanging, tailed curled up swinging, grin on its face,  I know it is having the time of its life. And those kind of people who scares them away by throwing stones at them, beat them and then feel smug because they feel powerful over it. I pity those people, because they don't realize there are so many people above them which treat them exactly the same way without even them knowing. Nature sure has to teach us a lot.

You might have heard of people saying...we have strong "bonds". We have "tied the knot".

We only get one true bond in our life and that is the bond a child is born with his mother. And as soon as he enters this world. Some doctor cuts it off with scissors. Its a unique way of him saying to that child, 'You are on your own, kid'. He cuts it, but the connection remains. It is a simple thread, unseen but strong. In the mind of the child, that connection is of love. It is the only thing that child understands. He meets his family, his father, his brother, he comes to love them too. Number of threads grows. They are very important as because of these connections, the child knows that he is cared for, he feels safe, he learns from the people, hope to become something like them someday. Soon enough, these threads lift the child to his feet and teaches him how to walk, how to eat, move, talk. He goes to school, meet friends, make new relations and the number of thread grows. Neighbors, uncles, aunts, teachers...threads keeps breaking and new one keep on building. Every thread teaches him something new about the world. Some threads he cares about a lot,hold fast to them and let those ones guide him where to go and how to do something. Others he wants to break apart from. Few he does not even know exists.
His life goes on normally...
There are ups and downs, successes and failures, countless emotions, indefinite memories, good and bad. At some stage in his life, a friend calls him to tell that they have made a sudden plan to visit some place and wants him to come along. The child, grown up now, can find at least a dozen reasons why he can not go though he wanted to badly, but there were just so many things he could not over look. Later that night, he realizes he could not even go for a trip as per his own free will, not even on a weekend.
You can not blame his work for that. Or even his family, his many friends, or matters that he is responsible for. Only single person accountable for the decision he made was himself.
And the reason he could not go... were the threads he had forgotten about. The threads, as he realized were so strong now...they were iron chains. They were holding him fast and were about his head, his neck, his shoulders, waist, legs and even his feet. And they were pulling him in different directions. He was holding out, enduring the pain...but it costed him. He was not so free as he thought. He realized he cannot actually walk where ever he want. Life is now a fight for him between those forces that keep pulling him in their own directions. After decades, he might get himself free from these shackles and people of the "society" might clap his back for doing good, congratulate for holding this long. What no one will see what it took.

A corporate life, something for which we have been preparing since our childhood, been learning about it, so that we can excel there and can make something good out of it. Thousands of us get into it every year happily with a dream and purpose...without knowing exactly what. Every year thousands of us retire out of it. Just like a huge machine working at a level beyond anyone's imagining, taking in young people and crunching them, crushing them, giving them hopes of "bright future" luring them to work harder and put everything into it...just because someday they will have what they want, they will have their time...without knowing exactly when. Their time sure comes, if late. But the catch is, when it does the young that entered with a pure and honest soul and purpose can hardly be seen. In his place, there is an old man with bad kidneys and failing lungs with all his dreams and hopes but a shattered dream. He even forgets why he joined. What ever he was hoping for all his life, does not even exist by the time he gets out of it. Its like that machine grinding, churning out and squeezing him until the last drop and when there is no more juice left, throw it out through the waste exit saying, 'Now you have our permission to die'. They even throw a party for him. 'Thank you for wasting your life for us.'

I leave it to your better judgement. What seems better to you? A selfless, always sacrificing tree? A flock of sheep, following the one ahead of it to death? A bull, pulling the heavy loads, doing all the hard work for its master, sweating and still getting whipped repeatedly just for the heap of tasteless grass at the end of day? A bird in a cage seeing the clouds, longing to sail through them waiting for the day it will be released? Do we wait for the weekend the same way? Are we just another one of millions attending the class, going everyday to work and gulping down the difficulties? Or are we here to make a difference...not something grand and huge to make history. No, the little things like living for ourselves for a change, doing what please us. Not deliberately falling for the society but to make our own. Finding value in something other than expensive products, finding value in love, relation and making them your source of energy not your limitation.
I leave it to you, who is ready to give up the rest of happiness of your life just for the sake of your relatives, to you who says, "I can never let it go", to you who feels lonely being placed somewhere distant country, to you, running to build up the status.
It is about time I tell you this.
Image is an illusion, status a myth, respect cannot be bought with money and love not with gifts.
It is about time we teach ourselves something that will not give us a good grade or a promotion but something that we desperately need.
Let us wish ourselves a happy independence day and celebrate.