For a lot of time now i have been caught in this riddle -
whether to be the person i am or make changes to suit the image of my ideal-self.
This post is an attempt to put the pieces of this riddle together.
Somehow to me it has always felt right to be my instinctive self. After all ' i am what i am' sounds so cool. But then there have been umpteen number of occasions when i have felt a sense of discontent with myself for not being what i want to be. For instance poise is one quality that has always intrigued me and i on a number of times end up acting very crude thus creating a gap between my actual-self and my ideal-self. And this is just one example there are several other such instances.
Having given a serious thought to this problem i figured that this discontent roots from not having a clear sense of what my ideal-self actually is. But then again defining my ideal-self in very clear terms is one thing and sticking to it is quite another, as there always will be a tendency to go back to my natural self. So the choice really is between training myself against my natural tendencies on one end and living with the discontent on the other.
So should i strive towards the first alternative or simply just be the way i am?
I don't think i still really have a sure answer to this question but after putting in some thought i have arrived at a tentative solution. The rest of the post discusses just that.
Ever since i came across a certain Mr. Howard Roark i have always been very fascinated towards this fictitious soul. When i say fascinated i mean fascinated only. The way a Harry Potter fascinates a 13-year-old. I mean here was one person who believed (or rather lived) that man is here to create and he creates for only one reason which is his own happiness. Now, if a batman or a superman can fascinate then Roark, most certainly can. Don't you agree. Heck, for the purpose of this post i'll assume that you do.
Now i took a look back at my recently completed 22-years of existence on planet earth. And tried to recount those moments when i felt a stark sense of happiness. I did this so that i could understand what exactly is it that makes me happy. Two things came out of this.
Firstly, i couldn't recount too many such moments, which i think is a shame considering the fact that i have now finished a quarter or may be more of my life-span. Just in case i am painting a very sorry picture of myself i must clarify that there have been plenty of times when i felt a great sense of elation, but those moments of elation do not give me any great joy now when i think about them.
Secondly, the only commonality that i could observe in all my hazy recollections of these past moments of elation was that i felt happy in these moments because somebody (usually my family members) felt happy for me in these moments. And also perhaps i had some kind of recognition (no matter howsoever microscopic it may be) in these moments. So as i observe my own happiness itself is dependent on others. And this is where Howard Roark becomes a fantasy. The easiest way for me to verify the validity of this observation was to imagine myself all alone on an island. I don't think that any of my actions will have any meaning in such a scenario and i also don't think that i will have any reason or motivation to continue existing then.
So now going back to the original problem. If being the way i am is causing some discontent it is because i am not able to bring out the desired responses to my actions from others. I think it's safe to draw such a conclusion now, as i have established that my contentment itself is dependent on others. However, i must be very carefully sure about the people i want to impress through my actions. Otherwise i will never have a clear sense of my ideal-self.
But going against my natural instinctive self is tough. So is it worth the trouble?
My answer right now is yes it is. A validation for this answer comes from the swimming lessons that i am taking these days. As i can observe now, almost all the movements that came naturally or instinctively to me in the swimming pool were all technically incorrect. Now is it worth learning the right technique is anybody's guess. Though i must add that there is a sizable fraction of swimmers who swim sufficiently well for their rquirements with partially correct technique. But then again i don't think they themselves did not want to learn the right way to swim. It was just that they stopped trying at some point.
Thus to conclude, my answer to the riddle is to strive towards my ideal-self. The caution here is that the ideal-self which i seek to strive towards should be reasonable, well-defined and attainable.
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24 comments:
thankyou for writing. i ll say you speak for most of the mrtals in this earth when you speak about yourself. thats saying a lot. and i would like to add something. striving to achieve a ideal self is a tricky concept. since ur perception of ur ideal as well as urself is not a constant thing. also life is nothing like swimming. in swimming you know what looks nice, but i would personally hand you a million bucks if you could tell me that in real life!!!! keep up the good work
so wats gonna be your first step towards achieving dis so called "ideal self"....wat kind of changes u wud bring in u and ur actions to get the "desired responses"...and also tel dat whom u want to impress wid ur actions.....i mean if ur family is happy wid ur natural self then thats it..nobody else should make a diiference!!!im bit confused....can u elaborate it further by making things bit more specific....for instant, by mentioning that whom u want to impress with ur gestures other than your own people....george bush or aishwarya rai???????
to ranga
first of all i must thank u for leaving a very sincere comment.
now when u say
" striving to achieve a ideal self is a tricky concept."
i fully agree that it is tricky and hence the post, had it been easy there wouldn't have been any need for any such pondering.
when u say
"ur perception of ur ideal as well as urself is not a constant thing. "
i again agree that it keeps changing. but from what i cud figure out for myself, i should always strive towards whatever my perception of my ideal-self is, at that particular point in time.
when u say
"also life is nothing like swimming. in swimming you know what looks nice, but i would personally hand you a million bucks if you could tell me that in real life!!!!"
this time i agree but only partially. at no point did i say that swimming is identical to life
(i hate using this word in my writings, it sounds awfully philosophical(read pseudo), but u've forced me this time).
i was only drawing a parallel here. swimming when compared to life(that word again) is a game of much lower complexity, and hence easier to master.
and finally, i cannot have ur million bucks because what looks nice to me may or may not look nice to u.
i hope my reply was to ur satisfaction.
and thanks again for ur
pearls of wisdom.
to anonymus
firstly, i'll request u to please reveal ur identity.
now i'll try to answer the questions raised by u through the original post wherever possible, and add to it if required. i'll use double quotes for lines from ur comment and single quotes for lines from the post.
"so wats gonna be your first step towards achieving dis so called "ideal self"."
first step will be to ensure
'the ideal-self which i seek to strive towards should be reaonable, well-defined and attainable.'
"wat kind of changes u wud bring in u and ur actions to get the "desired responses"....and also tel dat whom u want to impress wid ur actions.."
this post as u would also have noted was about finding an answer to the question - should i change or should i not?
what these changes will be may form the subject matter of another post in future.
"if ur family is happy wid ur natural self then thats it..nobody else should make a diiference!!!"
what i wrote was
'i felt happy in these moments because somebody (usually my family members) felt happy for me in these moments. And also perhaps i had some kind of recognition (no matter howsoever microscopic it may be) in these moments.'
as u would see its not only the family. it can be any relationship where my bonding with the other person is very strong. family simply happens to be the closest such group.
"can u elaborate it further by making things bit more specific....for instant, by mentioning that whom u want to impress with ur gestures other than your own people....george bush or aishwarya rai???????"
it can be anyone from a person who i think of as a potentially great friend to may be an aishwarya rai herself. as long as i am
'very carefully sure about the people i want to impress through my actions'
its alright.
if i am able to gauge the underlying acerbicity correctly then this comment must be from Monsieur Partha Basu. and if i am right, then can u not let me introspect in peace. most of it anyways is going to go waste as i think like this in my times of imagined frustration.
@KT
what the f***? naming names? hell i don't need to post as anonymous, i expect an apology in form of a verse or something of that order, hey man what happened to your poem writing skills?
this thing is a bit too introspective? i plan to write in detail about this mindset of yours on my own domain, (we're studying it in a subject called organisational behavior) so just keep a watch.
do me a favor and remove my name, and keep up the good work!
anonymous:
This is the very first time i got to read ur blogs .....infact this is the only post of yours which i have read..i just like it and feel like telling my perspective.And trust me i was no way intended to be harsh to u nor do i want any kind of alteracation....pls dont feel offended ,take it in positive spirit...And u know wat dat u made me even more perplexed wid this philosophical reply of your.wat irked me most is your nonchalance towards my seriously serious
questions....u answered them in ur own flow widout harmonising wid my vision...
i think no body should change for heck of other people,its always nice to be ur natural self no matter how bad it is.people who want u to change dont worth it in the first place.A potentialy great friend must be already impressed with you,if he is not,den he is not a great freind indeed and i dont think aishwarya rai worth it!! we exist on earth with our individuality n dats wat makes us stand out.A titbit of alteration with ur natural self is fine to impress someone realy special in ur life only if they worth it and u really feel like doin so.It will b even more nicer and fruitful to impress someone with your natural self rather then ur ideal self which is so precarious and already worked upon and to which even u urself may not be able to identify......so how prolific wil it turn out to be???first u should
start feeling nostalgic about ur true self n the very moment u wil abonden the idea of achieving this ideal self which seems as so alien thing n about which u dont seem to have any faint idea ethier ....have clear idea in mind dat whom u want to impress and why you want to impress him or her and why he or she is not impressed wid ur natural self and the next moment u wil b out of this predicament.....by the way wat kind of responses ur seeking....an award from president or a role in karan johar's next movie??a pat on d back from ur dearest people isnt enuf for u??
i hope this time u wil give some straight forward answers rather than those ponderous n weary responses.... aur
khushi hogi yeh jaankar agar aap mere vicharo se 10% bhi sehmat ho!!!!
to anonymus
First of all a clarification.
although ur first comment was anonymously posted, i replied to it thinking that the comment is from partha(see the last para of that reply), who is a great friend of mine, and would not have felt offended by the reply. Thus u can completely ignore the tone of that reply as any offence that u may have felt on reading the reply was absoloutely unintended and misdirected.
Second of all i can completely empathise with your view point. And the figure of 10% is a gross underestimation of the extent to which i agree with it. Toh ye mera saubhagya hoga agar aap ko ye jaan kar actually khush hui.
In fact i have mentioned in the first few lines of the post itself that to me it has always instinctively felt right to be my natural self.
But if being myself is so correct then i shouldn't feel any discontent with myself at all. But the fact is i do feel such discontent on a number of occasions. So in the post i was trying to find a solution to this problem.
Now as per ur instructions i will try to answer your seriously serious questions in the straightest of possible ways. But because of the nature of the subject some extent of 'weariness' is unavoidable and i will request you to please bear with it.
Let me take up the impressing part first. Now i place a lot of importance on relationships and bonding as they are a great source of happiness to me. This is where i had referred to my family members in the post as they are the closest group of people with whom my bonding is the strongest.
It is totally true that their love for me is unconditional. And for them i don't need to change.
But as time goes by i would like to have more such relationships. These relationships will be in the form of very close friends and the family that i inturn will start. Now there have been occasions in the past where i have lost out on great people simply because we failed to meet the right side of each other. So the people i want to impress are very ordinary people and not george bush or aishwarya rai (by the way i also dont think that she's worth it. personal choice - Lara Dutta). Also i would like to point out that i had used the word 'impress' in a much broader sense than is implied in its usual usage.
I'll take up the ideal-self part now. My guess is that there are very few people who are 100% comfortable with who they are. And such people may already be living their ideal-selves.
I for one happen to fall outside this previliged category.
And i think i should make changes to myself that i think are appropriate and will make me a better person. But yes these changes should be reasonable. I can give an example in this regard.
Usually i react spontaneously to a lot of situations and a no. of times i regret having reacted. Instead i think it will be wiser to take some time think and then respond to the situation in a rational way understanding the other person's view point as well. Now don't u think this is more reasonable than reacting and saying 'this is how i am'.
Khushi hogi jaan kar agar aap 10% bhi is se sehmat ho.
Now you are again right in pointing out that tendency is always to go back to ur natural self. I too have mentioned this point in the post itself. But then if change was easy then everybody would be perfect(remember the swimming analogy).
I must also mention that i wrote the post in a very introspective mood. The idea of change is very uncomfortable for me too and i don't think that i've done anything really to change myself since i wrote the post.
So at a functional level i am 100% with you, but i continue to wish i could change.
And finally i respect whatever reasons u have for posting comments anonymously, but i will request you to keep visting the blog and give me your perspective on things i write or have already written. We can be good pen friends this way. Also let me know if u run a blog or plan to start one in future. I'll be very happy to be one of your regular readers in that case.
Let me know how satisfactory this reply was and please don't probe me further on this post as i think i've already said all that i wanted to say.
ps: I wrote this entire reply in the office which goes to show how seriously i have tried to reply your questions. i am not re-reading the reply as i think its high time i get back to work. So pardon me for any typing errors that may have occured.
much satisfactory this time..thanks for being more candid and less tenacious this time n also for not disavowing my point,your compunction for ur previous reply is much transparent in this reply n also ur attempts were no way lesser to answer my seriously serious questions....yeah i knw that this post is done to death n its me who made u do so, so wont ask for more and dont ask serious or non serious questions,only some benign suggestions if u dont mind....firstly i want to say that its always better to b late than never i mean u can stil makeup for ur previous losses...nothing is incorrigible...is it?? n one more thing i wud like to tel u is dat most of the time i feel dat u
generalize the things or issues, it wil b more fun to read if u make things more specific by incorporating some real life anecdotes or pointing out the name of the very person u r talking about...it wil bcum even more easy to relate this way...... afterall its ur blog,ur space,something which exclusively belongs to u so dont b modest... be more pensive and wee bit pompous as wel......if u do it there i wont drill u here.....also i think dat u shud change the flavour of ur work i mean try something different,something unlike of u or something bit unusual.....try to give a shot to some thing unexpected or rather say it something offbeat....
and dont u want to guess my name!!!!atleast try...u wont b able to make it anyway!!!!! i dont have blog space of mine....
kushi hui jankar ki apne meri baat se itifaq rakha...
to anonymous
Firstly i am happy that u found my reply satisfactory.
Secondly ur suggestions r well taken and will try to write differently in future. Though how near or far can't say. Also it will help if u can come out with more specific themes for me to work on.
And lastly and most imporatntly guesees. I'll take three guesses, ranking them in the order of their likelihood and also tell my reasons for the same
#1 Partha- the writing style, the words used and the points raised in the last comment make it almost impossible for me to think beyond him. But he says he is not the one so i believe him.
#2 GG- i gave him the link to this blog recently and haven't heard from him since. Also he is pretty famous for playing such pranks. so i won't be surprised if its him.
#3 Rishi- bcoz many words in the comment were comprehensible only with the help of a dictionary something expected of him. although i really cant see him put in this much effort.
And if it is anyone else than these three then i must admit that u've beaten me hands down as i have no clue as to who u r.
I will appreciate if u now come out in the open. If not continue the association anonymously.
One sided anonymity though is unfair but i'm ready to live with it.
Let me know how correct or incorrect i was in my guessing.
Cheers
KT
after seeing ur guess work im sure ki kum se kum iss janam me toh aap mera naam guess kar hi nahi sakte...i dont knw the ppl u r talking about so im not one of them ofcourse.....its sumthing out of ur range...next to impossible... so better chuck this idea!!!moreover ur criteria for guessing is way of writing or type of words n all so u cant make it out simply bcos u havnt seen my work b4..... I posted comment anonymosly not wid the intention of playing prank or something like that at all...it was just so innate thing to happen...
n dis time i have tried to make my comment more comprehensible by using simple words only!!!
to anonymus
ok one more guess is it u Bala?
if not tell me r u from my school or from my college?
i do have another name in mind but i wont reveal it because i dont want to be wrong on this one.
nope...wrong again,
my first comment happened by chance only,i posted dat unintentionaly widout knowing dat soon it wil bcum a chain of replying replies...now me too having gud fun in this guessing game of naming names....so most of d time i come online i try to check ur page as wel.......n after writing so much here im feel like running a blog of my own...anyways after so much of drilling n draining of ur brain i wil suggest u speak out the last name u have in ur mind .....probability of u being correct is zero!!!....n yes i also read your poem'moment of freedom' abhi abhi par vo toh mere sar ke upar se hi nikal gai....so i wil luk forward to ur upcoming posts to comment upon if u dont mind...
to anonymous
well i also replied to your first comment without knowing that it will become a series of replies.
i am not going to come out with the last name. i've already told u the reason i dont want to be wrong on this one. also if i am actually wrong on this one then i really wont have the vaguest of ideas as to who u r. so i'd like to think that i know even if i actually do not.
now about the poem
'a flight in a moment of freedom' i dont think there was anything in the poem that should have caused
'overhead transmission'.
i suggest u go through it again.
and yes i have already said that i'll be more than happy to continue receiving comments from u doesn't matter even if they are anonymously posted.
and lastly i asked u a question in my previous reply
are u from my college or from my school?
please reply to it this time.
me anonymous-
dont ask for direct or indirect hints...very soon i will tell u my name may be on diwali,happy new year or holi or something like dat till then let it be this way only.. and i promise u dat i will always be honest with my comments..inbetween u can continue with ur guess work ...i think speaking out the last name is totally innocuous bcos if dat wud be mine i wil admit,if not then that person wont come to know about it anyhow and you can delete dat later but its totally upto u whether u want to live wid vaguest of ideas or rather an clear one but i wont insist you..!!!! And yes not getting the fervour of ur poem is my fault not yours...may be this one is not meant for lesser mortals like me......
And please pardon me for all the lingos i have used so far...i used them only to spice up the so mundane of comments or rather say it conversation!!!!!!
to anonymus
i guess i will also keep the last name with me till whichever occasion u choose to reveal ur name. after all i should also have some revelation when u disclose ur name.
and why would u ask me to pardon u for the language, i enjoyed every bit of the spice too.
ok...
atleast drop some hints about who do u think i am...!!
to anonymus
in this respect i think we can strike a deal. u give me one hint at a time about urself and in return i'll give u a hint of around the same difficulty level about who i think u r.
u can include the first hint in ur next comment if u find this arrangement suitable.
very smart of you....!!!! koi baat nahi....so here goes my first clue..
1) I have got a crooked nose...
now its ur turn,be honest...
to anonymus
a very vague first hint i must say.
well hergoes mine
i think u r from my college.
if i am on track bring on the next one.
kya re...dont play smart....i have already told u that im not goin to tell u dat whether im from ur colg,school,play school,tution, coaching or whatever.....ur clue is of no good to me at all!!
Anyways second hint-"5.6"....my height
now ur turn....pls dont ask questions in hint itself
to anonymus
well the person i was thinking of is not 5'6". so my hints end here. but u can still give me more hints if not ur actual name itself.
in my last reply i had written that bring on ur next hint if i am on the right track. the fact that u gave me the second hint gives me reason to belive that i am atleast right in thinking that u r from my college.
but it really doesn't matter now because even in college i have absoloutely no clue as to who u r.
its ok...i was making u guess bcos i knew u cannot...name is such a trivial thing of least importance so forget it,one day i wil tel u myself....aur in between kabhi aapka fuse bulb jale toh do let me know...u can try wid wildest of wildest guess u have in ur mind.....nd i stil havnt told u if im from ur college or school so dont have wrong or right perceptions......
to anonymous
i dont think ki mere fused bulb ke jalne ka koi chance hai..but u keep visting this blog and keep posting comments on my posts.
i know ye bulb kabhi nahi jalega...jal hi nahi sakta...iss janam me toh kabhi nahi!!!
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