Deify (or may be not)

My second post in two days. Looks like I'm on a roll, but then, let me not get over myself here. How I am doing this is, I have a folder on my system with text files named after each topic I want to write about. This list is being accumulated from about a couple of months (ever since I got this machine..) and I haven't worked on them until yesterday. Alright, none of your business, right? I know. but then, it feels good to be sharing these things with friends. :) Well, I named this text file deify and hope the title stays the same at the end too. Just a declaration :). Anyway, I am enjoying the first few days of my holidays very much, what with nothing and yet, everything to do. Why, just today, I enquired for a course to learn Spanish and was astounded by the exorbitant price and decided to download one instead. Typical Indian, you might say, but then, lack of resources and the exorbitant price makes me do that, Fine, jokes apart, what is this post about? Well, this is something we see virtually everyday. I'll barge into the post, because one of my friends (and avid reader of this blog) doesn't apparently like my dragging on the first few paragraphs of each post.

You might have seen people praising people. That's pretty common, I am not saying praising people is bad. But sometimes, what happens is, people just deify (I don't know a more superlative word for this...) their peers (yes, I forgot to mention this, just peers and I'm gonna make an elaborate argument stating how everyone is a peer. :)). Fine, let me start off with some building statements. Everyone is equal. People who have achieved something have done so just because they have worked hard on it. Having said that, I'd like to play a bit with the borderlines of religion here. Let me state some more things here. God does not play cricket. God has (most probably) better things to do than making you laugh by enacting a bit as your favorite comedian. God does not get a paltry 10 Lakhs per annum package for a job. And there are many more things on those lines. I have seen people (quite many around me) compare people especially peers with God. Let me stop being religious here. Let's face it, Sachin is not God. (A post on my views on games and stuff might be just around the corner) (this is just an example, no offence to you hardcore fans) This has become a common practice, at least I believe, in the recent past. Let me move away from this, you may prefer to call celebs whatever you like, but let me get to my point.

Fine, coming to peers. A guy gets a good score on a test, or may be a fine placement, I dunno why some of us are compelled to deify the person. He may be whatever he/she is, but then let me put some perspective here. Did you ever notice that, by deifying a peer of yours, you are simply creating delusions to yourself that you are a good-for-nothing person? A person may deserve praise, I'm all for it. But do that in a way that is not pretentious and constructive to yourself too. For instance, call the person up, talk to them and congratulate on the achievement. I don't see any reason why a successful person needs to be deified. Get inspired, yes, but there is no reason to deify the person and least of all to tell the person himself/herself. You know, your peer probably got to be good just because he worked hard to get there, so just simply let him be and for once, be selfish. Being a guy who thinks a looooot, I know what kind of effect deifying people has on your own efforts and may be even you levels of confidence. So, simple solution - do not deify. May be revere, may be just respect, but deifying is completely not in the same league. And about everyone being peers, this is not the right place for it. May be another post :). But thing is, I haven;t thought out this whole post a lot, I must be better prepared for future posts :).

Ok, almost sleep-time, I'll leave it here. I think I have made a statement of sorts with this and my previous posts. I have my own thought process and ideas and for all I know, they might be as twisted as a mobius strip. What I actaully want to do using this medium is - urge readers to think about these topics and build their own opinions. I shall never rub my personal thought process on anyone at all. *batting eye-lids* :)

And of course, the disclaimer at the end of the last post applies here too :). By the way, I lost all my ":P"s if you haven't noticed. :)

Nighty Night!!

P.S.: Please give your opinions too in the comments section :)

D.I.Y.!!

Fine, I'm back... Not that I'm cool with spending time this way during my exams, but this seems far  more enjoyable than my preparation :).

So, what's this all about? DIY stands for Do It Yourself, as most of you might have guessed. This according to me is the philosophy of our generation. Everyday, we face people who complain about, well, everything. Be it the pollution, the traffic or the education system in our case :). But, what are we doing to change it? Let's be honest, virtually nothing. And why? because we are lazy? No, sir, that's because we've been brought up that way. As Mahatma Gandhi rightly puts,

"We need to be the change we wish to see in the world."

Let me put it this way, we prefer complaining, hemming and hawing (That reminds me of Who Moved my Cheese by Dr.Spencer Johnson), to doing something towards changing the things that irritate, or rather cause discomfort to, us. 

Why is it that, in our social setting (guys, I'm talking purely about India), the first thing we are taught is to "adjust". 

If someone is irritating you, just get along with it, don't punch him in the nose. Control your emotions blah blah.. 

If you find that something wrong is going on around you, ignore it, "It's none of your business!". 

Now, that phrase strikes me to be odd. C'mon guys, if it's happening around me, it damn well is my business, me being the quintessential citizen I try to be :). Don't you think it is the concern for everyone of us? So, where's this fit in with "DIY"? Simple guys, you might as well have gotten the point by now, don't depend on others. If you got something to get done, try and do it yourself. The instrumental word here being try, as opposed to do. If you don't like people using plastic bags, initiate the movement, start using paper or cloth bags, I'm sure you can get the drift..

Instead of saying, "Something has to be done about it.", we could use the more optimistic "I/We gotta do something about it.". Sounds loads better to me anyways. Then there's this common issue of people commenting us. Seriously, guys, we are more sophisticated than that, as in, we don't need to acknowledge the comments so long as we believe in what we are doing.

Let's not digress...

So, DIY is the cult among people of our generation. The reasons? Simple, we prefer being independent, we like to try new things, we like "getting our hands dirty". Then there also is the massive ego of ours :), if an expert can do it, why can't I? Well, worth mention here is my belief that an amateur can be more creative and successful in any field than the professionals. Simple logic, a professional is taught all the rules of working and the human mind is such, that once you know the result of some mistake, we presume it to be true, without ever trying to test for the truth. A person who is self taught can definitely view things in excellent perspective, as compared to a person who's been taught. Also, there's this satisfactory feeling you get after you have accomplished something by yourself. You actually feel on top of the world. Your mind becomes freeeeeee, you don't need to depend on others. So, essentially, it's important to try and DIY (sounds poetic, eh? :)). Now, I know this gotta end now - not DIY, but this post. :)

Adieu,

Try and DIY :) :)