Prolonged meditation

INTROSPECTION

Let me start by giving you people an insight into my distinct mind-reading skills! You don’t believe someone can possess this skill? Well, then give me the honour of deeming you all wrong!

Here we go!

Lovely people, I’m now concentrating all my powers to contemplate this one big mess that you all call to be your brains. Ideally, I would’ve commanded you all to shut your eyes, because this is what other mind readers do, perhaps they find the beautiful eyes distracting; but we aren’t doing that here for some very obvious reasons! So, keep your sparkly eyes open and read on!

Here is what I’m seeing: You have a beautiful mind, with quite innovative ideas. You are, I guess, happy with your lives, but not as contented? You have big dreams and towering expectations from your life? You believe you’re unique and special and that you’ll make it big one day? You feel you are on the right track and are following your heart and passion? You are certain that you are and will always live your life on your own terms and choices?

Now, how did I get this?

Well, deeming themselves special is what millennials effortlessly excel at! They are completely blindfolded by reality and they choose to turn a deaf ear to their cluelessness, let alone deliberate over it. Unfortunately, we all have been passively conditioned at our subconscious level to operate in this manner; which, I believe, is the most problematic. Our unquestioningly-accepting attitude has only added to aggravating the crisis manyfold.

In our average routines, we rarely, often times never, make it a point to question our choices, eventually, ending up leading our lives following a course of actions that is immensely influenced and manipulated by others around us, but not ourselves. Our career choices being the paradigm of all! Our personalities are moulded in the same containers, leaving no marks of individuality in us, whatsoever. The society has taken up the role of a photocopier and is remorselessly yielding copies of human beings, rendering us dispossessed of the quality to appreciate the rawness of our characters, and excelling in refining us on its own terms! We can hardly find someone who'd be oblivious to this well-known, largely accepted idea of criminal adulteration into the career choices of a majority of individuals; but we’ve somehow always remained unmindful of the contamination that is present in the minor, apparently unimportant, but essentially quite significant aspects of life.

Let’s take a look to find out how

When it comes to our social media, it’s imperative for each one of us to talk about issues we don’t feel right about, but only do so owing to trends and gaining more inclusivity into the “cool” group of people (I don’t understand the discrimination for the “hot” ones). We join all the social media platforms, and have been making tik-toks, dub-smashes, taking selfies with dogs (and almost all kinds of animal) filter, doing challenges like don’t rush, etc; not because we wanted to, but because we complied with the trends. Our fashion sense also gets numb and is only titillated by what’s trending (Trust me, when I say it won’t make a difference if your closet gets swapped by any of your friends for that matter). We travel to the places our peers are travelling to. We take up hobbies based on what everyone else around us seems to be engaged in. If one does calligraphy, you suddenly realize you were born to be a calligrapher; if they’re painting, you’re painting; if they are cooking, you’re on your way to Master-chef Australia! If everybody is binge-watching Money Heist, you will too! In beauty/cosmetic industry, without any exaggeration, every other influencer/blogger, to me at least, has started resembling Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, having gone under the knife for all the similar procedures and surgeries (I can bet a first timer looking at them would have a hard time distinguishing between all the sisters, owing to the similar cosmetic procedures they all underwent). Similar appearances are, undisputedly, doing an efficient job in masking our unique inner selves, forming facades that almost feel unfeigned. We all have, actively or passively, succumbed to merging in, rather than standing out!

A major reason for us never contemplating this heinous problem is that we never concentrate; partly because we are always busy keeping up with the rat race we are mindlessly competing in, and partly because we never allow ourselves to question the blueprints of our reality.

My life has never been an exception, owing to the aforementioned reasons; but quarantine has been a cold breeze in a hot summer day (or maybe a hot summer year). Being all alone, with no company of people whatsoever, has provided me with ample time to give myself a break from the rat race, (and from the other rats in the race, too) consequently equipping me with a better lens to see the world! (Only metaphorically; I still am heavily myopic!) This newly given sight has enabled me to differentiate between my personality traits, hobbies, activities that have always fundamentally been mine, and others which have been borrowed by my surroundings. Just with a little scrutiny, we all can utilize this time to work on dreams that had been important to us, before the hustle bustle of life entombed them. With plentiful time in our hands, coupled with no human contact, we can take up new and reflect on previous choices in the most untainted, uncontaminated way. We can gain back our very own, different, unique individual identities with no marks and blemishes of the society whatsoever. This time, with our will, can be construed into a prolonged period of meditation, sans all the peripheral, unnecessary fret and shambles. It’s finally time to breathe under fresh, unpolluted air! We should seize the opportunity of carving our personalities with our own tools and skills. Our natural instincts should now be given the task of paving out roads for us!

And just so you know, this piece is the outcome of me reflecting on the history of my choices that resulted in finally recommencing writing!