Dreams, Reconfigured.
“Sir, why does man need society? How did the whole concept come into being?”
“Man is a social animal”.
Ever since man was a hunter, men hunted in groups to make up for the lack of size and strength. Each man covered for the others weaknesses. Such was the power of groups that probably we hunted even the Mammoth to extinction.
And thus the foundation of society as we know it was laid.
Then man burnt down forests and settled down. Crops were sown and civilizations spawned. The concept of society grew and consequently its meaning also varied. But at heart it was still a group of men making up for the lack of particular skills in each other. Things were all good.
“Sir whats a Social Stereotype then?”
With man, growth is not linear and limited. Like population and civilization, popular concepts grow exponentially. Until they grow out of control. Like religion. The concept of the all powerful church which lead to the dark ages. And the common factor fueling this growth is always society. Without social support nothing survives.
Any force or organism has the habit of following the path of least resistance. The same holds for man. Most men blindly follow the path of consensus; ‘The democratic way’. Society, or a group of men, decide what is to be considered right. More often than not, it is the path of least resistance.
And so we have a well defined set of rights and wrongs. We might feel otherwise, but we are forced to follow this set. Configured to behave in a set manner. Learn to eat with a fork and spoon even though it hardly matters as long as you have clean hands. Some give in very early on in life and some later, but sooner or later we all do it; for fear of being labled ‘Antisocial’ and ‘Mannerless’. We all have a single color paint coating over our real selves. What differs is the amount of paint we have on.
Society even defines cultural expectations about what a mother is supposed to be. “On the whole in our culture, housewife-mothers are taken as better examples of mothers than nonhousewife-mothers.”
The question is are dreams, feelings and truth subject to consensus? Except in courts, again a social setup, truth is beyond consensus. Why these petty rules to define what a man wants to do in life? Why is the wisdom of others failiures shoved upon someone who has no feelings whatsoever about that path? Why do we want our kids to become what we couldn’t or now a days, what every other person is trying to be? Why are we taught to seek the approval of society for every dream we dream? Wasn’t society supposed to help an individual overcome his shortcomings and come up at whatever he dreamt of? Why have we become victims of the stereotype-revolution dogma? Why do we need a revolution everytime we need a change?
What happens when the paint starts to wear off and leaves behind a man in possession of the shadows of the dreams and hopes he once had?
“A tired man they see, no longer cares.”
Note: This post first appeared on the blog: Blissfully Paranoid. I am the author of the same and since I don't have enough time to update both blogs, I have decided to stick to this one and transfer my posts here. Cheers!
