Thursday, September 09, 2004

Priorities Confuse My Mind

Does anything really count? Do dreams amount to nothing? Today, we are trained to walk down a path shown to us by blind men who promise to make us "rich". But only if we forsake the immeasurable wealth we already possess. Prioritising seems to have become act of madness where we further suppress our calling in an attempt to get "real", to pursue what we are led to believe is in our best interests.

As a child I used to be forced out of the house every evening, for two and a half hours to play. My parents forced me to read books and cultivate and pursue interests outside my curriculum. So it was too with several of my friends. We were taught to be all-rounders. Today, that concept is dead; a relic of a bygone era. Today, children rarely play. Most do not even know what it feels like to kick a football or hold a bat. Their only purpose in life seems to be to grow up fast and grow up smart.

Children today attend coaching classes before they are even old enough to pronounce "coaching class" right. The only idea constantly dinned into their heads by their parents is that they must excel in their academics, get into good colleges and earn a lot of money and be very happy in life. This is where they lose their chances of really achieving the last part of their aim. They have no interests as a consequence of their obsession with grades. They never know where their true intersts lie nor what they could perhaps excel at, due to the same reason.

Their parents pat themselves on the back for having such "mature" children. But wait a minute. Isn't a child supposed to enjoy life? To indulge in his immaturity and explore his potential in a manner and time that will be accorded to him for his immaturity? The moment he becomes mature, doesn't he cease to be a child any more? Yet that is exactly what we have today. Mature persons, not yet old enough to be adults, nor young enough mentally to be children. Still at school, they have decided the courses their careers shall take.

Shall they ever achieve happiness? Shall WE ever attain happiness? Perhaps, but not the way we live today. Our mad rush for what we call progress ensures that even if we do attain our wants, the very way we must live to achieve those and our subsequent demands, will ensure that we never have the time to enjoy our riches.

Our childhoods we lose thinking of the riches we shall enjoy in our youth, a youth that we are then made to lose in the search for a comfortable middle and old age, which in turn we are destined to lose to ailments born of the excesses of a life, lived to achieve this stage.

5 comments:

N said...

hey
heard 'working class hero' by lennon?
u must, if u havent. Says exactly wht u have written. And I know how frustrated I get trying to get my younger bros out of the house n play, away from TV, away from the damn comp!
maybe when u have kids... u can make some much needed changes... ;)

Kraz Arkin said...

Also Piano Man by Billy Joel, talkin of dreams and their conflict with reality. Man, M, you sound like you need a break. Also remember those times when we were kids and our parents were real ball-breakers sometimes about somethings. I used to resolve never to be like that to my kids when I grew up. That seems doubtful now, looking back and forward.

Darth Midnightmare said...

Nope Neeta, not heard that one. Heard Piano Man though. And yes Kraz, well said. I do need a break. Guess IIM is doing this to me. It all seems so futile. Wonder how I will be with my kids though. Would I make them do the things I have spoken of? Time will tell, I guess, but I hope not. Would hate to be a hypocrite.

Anonymous said...

Hm... Interesting writing, but with an undercurrent of pessimism ! The promise of riches indeed...

But aren't most of us already rich ? The best things in life are free... A cup of coffee, a friendly smile, love, the wind in your hair, sunsets, sunrises... Of course, we can choose to ignore all this beauty and mourn the good old days... we could even term that our fate :-) But the fact remains that life is beautiful, ppl are mostly nice, the skies are mostly blue, and tomorrow could be better than today :) So lighten up !

Note - I am not talking of ppl grovelling in abject poverty (and yes, there are unfortunately many of them in our land). I'm talking of ppl with no roti-kapda-makan type problems.

Darth Midnightmare said...

How many of us realise our existing wealth? We are all chasing the shadows we think will make us happu. In the mad rush we forget what we already have. That's what I meant when I said "only if we forsake the immeasurable wealth we already possess" right at the start.