The idea of being ‘great’

What is the point of life if you don’t do great things in life ? What is the point of living without being great? As human beings we want to think that we need to leave our mark in this world by doing great things that the people will remember even if we are dead. We want to reach to the pinnacle of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I am also the victim of this incessant need to be great and do great things in life. I am beginning to strongly feel that this is a dangerous and the evilest perspective of life. This perspective will bring endless miseries to oneself and others.

What is great about being great ? It is the selfish motive to impose one’s gigantic self ego and importance to other people. Family and society fill the minds of children to aspire to achieve great things. I am not against being great and doing great things. However I am against the idea to forcefully steer the minds towards greatness. This creates the unnecessary burden to life and makes us hate ourselves because for not fulfilling the expectation of oneself and society. We are ridden with anxiety in life. We undervalue and take for granted the usual, commonplace and small in your life while seeking the greatness in life. We are not being able to enjoy the moments in life. We are always chasing the elusive greatness. The need to be great makes you indifferent to other people, jealous, greedy and filled with hatred. Somehow by hook or crook we are bent on achieving the greatness.

You fret over being unrecognized, your greatness going in vain and society not giving you the due for your perceived enormous & gigantic self importance. What if you were to lose all these anxieties. The constant need to prove oneself in the eyes of others and to put up a false pretense of civilities is choking. The most liberating thing in anybody’s life is to get rid the idea of being and need to be great. Just do it and feel the exhilarating effect.

I am not saying you don’t need to have an ambition in your life. Your ambition not necessary should have a tag of greatness. I am just saying anything and everything in this world can be great. The life itself and the fact that you are breathing now is great. We are just creating this false idea of greatness where people seek it in the work they do, the money and wealth they cover themselves with and the validation they seek from other people. It doesn’t have to be that. There are so many moments in a day where we can derive joy and happiness from. However to our eyes they are too commonplace to be great. Those are the things that ultimately matter in our lives.

I like what B.P Koirala once said ‘ thulo manchhe nabannu, asal manchhe hunu ‘.

What is interesting about humans?

Humans have an interesting and perhaps the most unique ability amongst all the species in this world – we can think about our own thinking. Using this faculty of mind, I think about myself and get intrigued by my own pattern of thoughts and behaviours. Psychology subject fashions itself with its power of predictability to forecast about people’s behaviours. Even though its much acclaimed power it doesn’t get everything right. Human behaviours are so elusive it might be darn impossible to sufficiently study it.

Would it be interesting if we can know everything about human behaviours and persons around us are no strangers anymore ? I might sound anti-psychologist but I wouldn’t be interested to that prospect. Do you like to play the game that you always win ? There you get my answer. It is the always incomplete missing piece of the puzzle of human behaviours that interests the Psychologist like me. Human behaviours are so dynamic that things that you know today does not apply tomorrow.

When I think about human behaviours – I always wonder about its origin and causes. What makes our behaviours? Well Psychologists say that it is the interaction of our environment and genes pretty much sums up who we are. But that would be quiet simplistic to say like that. Therefore there’s never ending debate of nature vs nurture and individual vs dispositional explanation in Psychology. There can be endless combination of your genes and environment which allow even identical twins who share 100% genes and same environment to be different.

I was watching a netflix documentary about the gene technology in which you can determine the traits and characteristics by editing of the genes of baby before the birth. I am much against this idea. The idea of normal distribution of population will be violated. It robs off the mysticism and the idea of free will in people. But even with that technology to what extent can we determine the human characteristics ?

I want to be hopeful about human beings. I like their ability to surprise themselves. With all of their flaws humans are interesting because they have endless scope to work on themselves. I think this is where the true purpose of life lays They themselves can be the subjects for their own study. The awareness that you are what you are is priceless.

I think there will always be some unknown of human characteristics. How much ever you try to study it in its entirety there is no mechanism and method you can do it. This makes human beings interesting. It is like reading a thriller novel with all the mysteries – the quest to explain those mysteries make human beings more interesting. It’s the ability of a humans to surprise oneself and others makes them interesting.

Awkward Relationship

Relationship with another human being can be a wonderful thing and at the same time quiet puzzling. It is a source of happiness and also deep pain. Its effect in human psyche is immeasurable. It is the most fascinating topic for the Psychologists. There are all sorts of relationships out there. I want to focus one quiet peculiar relationship which I want to call awkward relationship.

This kind of relationship has a great beginning. The other person becomes your best friend. Everything is great. But then something happens in between. May be you go away to another place far from where the other person is staying. Communication becomes thin. Or unsaid conflict, misunderstanding and grudges brew inside. Or may be some third person seeds the negative attitude about that person. The feeling of comfort in your talk with that person becomes formal, cold and avoidant. You expect the other person to speak first and may be the other person expects the same from you.

There is no public spat or conflicts that other persons can infer to. It is insidious. You may not recognize the causes at the beginning. But retrospectively reflecting the reasons might be clear. The other feature of such relationship is that you cannot out rightly end this kind of relationship because you still value or have some feeling for that person. After the passage of time, you might want to reanimate the relationship. But it is difficult since the thread of relationship is faded or lost. You don’t know how to start. Or it becomes very awkward to speak to that person again.

Psychology says that for resolving any relationship problems you have to talk or express. But it is easier said than done. If it was that easy then the relationship wouldn’t have been awkward in the first place. After not speaking properly for 3-4 years you cannot just go and try normal conversation with that person. Or even to start a conversation you don’t know how to start.

‘Should I say sorry ?’ Oh that might be more awkward. What are you sorry about anyway? For not speaking ? Then why didn’t you speak ? The explanation is burdensome. Or ‘ Should I just start normal conversation as if everything was fine between you’. But this is not just being you. What should you then?

I am not offering any solution here. I have such awkward relationships in my life as well. I am trying to figure it out myself. I think for now we have to realize such relationships exist. And lets hope there is a chance to revert back to the good old days.