Life, Ideals and the City!

The idea of the influence of a city that you spent your childhood, growing up, on you ideals and values never crossed my mind before. Not before I came across a certain university application my cousin was filling. It appeared relatively simple : Please tell us about where you have grown up. How has it contributed to the way you hope to influence the world?
But, when I sat and thought about it... I remembered that what appears on the surface is not necessarily true. This was one the most difficult things that my mind strives to simplify.

I was lost! Totally in a no mans' land. I had no idea as to how much of myself reflected the city. Coming from a family which considerably shifted base, I couldn't really point to one particular city. I had lived in four cities over a period of 18 years. Legally speaking - my childhood! So I adopted an alternative, to identify as to how much my culture and my state affected me.

I belong to a state which is one of the most advanced regions in the world. The socio-economic index is arguably one the best worldwide. The best literacy rates, the best health care infrastructure and a not so bad economy. As my cousin rightly put it, the poorest of the poor had a bricked house as their shelter! The result, I never really comprehended poverty. I have never seen anybody struggle to get one times meal or cover their human self in a piece of fabric. Poverty in my terms meant not being able to secure materialistic luxuries! However, a sound education kept global reality in perspective.

Culture! One of the highly regarded, developed and most intricate, I grew up in society which treated women with highest regard. Fairly cosmopolitan with multi-religious and multi- ethnic people, tolerance and faith in faiths beyond self is something that I picked up. Being a matriarchal society, women has always been at the helm of affairs even before terms like feminism and women's right were coined. I cannot possibly imagine women not playing an active role in the society.

The high level of education in the society has imbibed in me a sense of high self respect and courage. Courage to stand up and speak for myself, my rights while not neglecting my duties. The peace and tranquility that surrounded helped me in solving crisis through brain rather than getting into physical rage.

It is interesting as to how much your city influences you. The ideals you uphold, the morality you carry, the work ethics, the approach to life, everything is evolved from the kind of upbringing you have had. And your upbringing is greatly influenced by the city.

Man makes the city and the city makes the man.

A Fascination with Tragedy.

Tragedy. A set of events that has an immese potential to capture the attention of a fairly superficial being called man.

It is a real mystery as to why man has such a fascination with anything that is tragic. Our life is filled with tragedies... if not ours then of random people who has nothing to do with us. Open a newspaper and all you will see is dramatic versions of incidents which occured in some corner of the world. A photograph of a mother crying over her slain son... a daughter weeping for her murdered family.Go for a movie and again you see a million drops of tear shedding. Take a book and start reading and again we find ourself crying with the fictional calamities happening. Why is it that sadness, death and torture manage to affect the human phsyche so much while joy, birth and pleasure of life seemingly goes without much of an impact?

Is our life so depressing that we need to channelise the sorrow burried deep inside through the tragedy of others? Or rather is our life so blissful and happy that we need to know about the sorrows of others,so that we realise how blessed we are? Maybe it has to do with seasoning of our mind so that we can handle ourself effectively when calamities come knocking on our door.

Whatever, the reason for this fascination ; one thing is for sure: Tragedy is a billion dollar industry. The entire media industry thrives on it. News channels, movie makers, soap operas and authors; all use this human physche to the fullest. We cant blame them because business is after all business. They are only feeding to the demand of people.

The demand of people to see more and more of the greyer side of human existance. Who can deny the fact that the gruesome death of a character in a film did not influence his regard for the movie? For being more precise, let me take the movie "Munich" by Steven Spielberg. Would we all see the movie in same light if so much of death wasnt involved. I have to be frank here... the movie is where it is for its frank portrayal of the immensely gross tortureous death of the characters. We as humans somehow connect with tragedy. We are deeply disturbed by it and this disturbance makes us think. We think about ourself and start questioning our existence. We are reminded about the fears and uncertainity of life. We cry, shout and try to take out the frustration. And then we find an inner peace... if not for a life time, for a few seconds.

Man has a fascination for tragedy for it helps in keeping things in perspective.

A emotion called Love...

Love! Perhaps the most misunderstood, most misused and most cliched word that a language can ever produce. It seems like a simple word. Clear and straight forward. Ask anybody who is human, irrespective of their age you will hear that they all have loved. If not for atleast once. But, go a step further and introspect into their notion of love and we will start doubting. Is that really love?

Well, it is quite possible. What happens most of the time is that we base our perception on those literary wizards who give a surreal meaning to love. Not with others but with us as well. We want our life to be those flowery and bubbly love of the movies or want it to be straight out of the literature.

Literature has made love larger than life. They have made it so pure, so intense and out of the worldly feeling and on a totally different parallel it is impure and so worldly. Yes, literature itself is confused when it comes to love.

It is interesting to note how a single word is often used to describe an amalgamation of emotions. Often, it so happens that the word simply fails to capture the intense drama attached. It is to be taken for granted that love is just a theatrical play. It comes with its due course of ecstasy, laughter, fear, sadness and more. With a script that progresses and intensifies with time, we are just actors.

However, what need to be understood is that love after all is just an emotion. A master of all emotions. A emotion which has immense power over our abilty to laugh, to cry , to hate or to be in fear. But, no matter how much power this single emotion has, it comes and goes. The human mind is designed to do so. Nothing is static. Anger can come and go in seconds, the same anger can stay with us for a lifetime. It holds true for everything, including the most humanly emotion of love. So like all those plays out there, this also has to end wheter on a happy note or sad depends upon the actors involved.

So, let's ask once again and no matter what they say let's believe in their love. Pure, impure, superficial or intense, love after all is love.

Thoughts

Hmm... I already have a live and kicking blog in xanga. Then why am i here?? Well, Xanga's dezinerdreams is my LIFE and my take on things surrounding me in my immediate daily life.

I am here for i feel a necessity for me to break away.I need a place for me to go and indulge in the deepest corners of my mind. A place for me to explore myself and go a step further from this world.I am here to attach and dettach myself from life.

So heres my thoughts. Thoughts... so random, so weak, so powerful, so pure, so impure.