Free your dreams
Published by Mysorean on Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 3:10:00 am.
Blogging enables us to put our thoughts into words for the World to see. I was wondering if our thoughts are born out of a process free of unnecessary constraints. I recognize the fact that we need certain constraints in our thinking or else distance from insanity would decrease.
I was discussing my favourite topic of how to choose a spouse with a good friend of mine. Upto the point I broached the particular topic she was explaining in great detail how things were moving and what she felt with each horoscope and photo being sent. I felt like I had hit a dead-end when I asked, "What kind of a life partner are you looking at?".
"Adi, I haven't thought about it"
"What? You are going to get married in a few days from now and you have not even thought of what kind of a life partner you want is it?"
"No Adi, it's not like that..." Silence.
I am waiting for the remaining part of the response. There's nothing. It's just tapered off into nothing.
So I begin my quest again not knowing whether I was making her comfortable or not. My purpose was to find out if she had an idea and was not willing to share with me or was it that she had no idea at all. Very soon, I was to find out that she had no idea at all!
"What happened? Did I ask something wrong? You don't want to tell me is it?"
"No Adi, I don't know. I haven't thought about it"
"Come on! You have completed your engg and are now working for the past one year. You must have seen many guys who must have inspired the thought 'He-could-be-my-lifepartner', haven't you? Hasn't this occured to you?"
"Adi, what you are saying is right. But when I tell this to my parents, they ask me, "Are you Queen Cleopatra for guys to stand in queue for you?"
Finally, there was atleast a recognition that she underwent what all human beings do. An intuitive way of living life. And according to something I read somewhere, women have better intuition. But this intuition was being killed by people around her.
"That's okay. What you get may finally not be what you wanted. But you still have the freedom to dream Geeta*. Let your mind free and dream of what you want. When you are dreaming don't think about whether you will get it or not. That's not how you dream. For example, I want a girl who looks like Madhuri Dixit, has Rekha's sensuality, but Nayantara's homeliness, speaks like Barkha Dutt, exudes the confidence of Kiran Bedi, treats my children like Mother Teresa, cooks like my mom, etc etc. But will I get such a girl? With due regards to my future lifepartner, I don't know is my answer. But I have a dream. More importantly I made use of my freedom to dream, that's all!"
(*Name has been changed to protect her identity)
After that, Geeta started explaining what kind of a lifepartner she was looking at. And how nice it would be to have a life with him. She had begun on a journey towards an uncertain destination for the first time in her 21 years of life. She was dreaming.
All of us have the fundamental freedom to dream. If you don't make use of that freedom you would be living a very one-dimensional life. Taking each day as it comes and not really expecting anything at all out of life. I meet tons of such people with this kind of a predisposition towards life. And they are not even aware they are living life that way. A very sad way, indeed! I cannot go on preaching my theories to everybody, Can I?
But I have been trying to fathom the reason as to why individuals turn out to be this way? Why are their wings of freedom clipped? Who does it? Do we do it ourselves consciously? Or is it the effect of some external force that makes us do this at an unconscious level?
One of the key reasons I found, across a sample of 5 people (all females, please note), is the pressure of getting you married off to somebody as quickly as possible. The idea is to shrug off the burden as soon as possible. "Are you Queen Cleopatra" is a classic example of how big a burden you have become! I was told that to every mother on this planet her kid looks like the moon! But here, the equation changes. We are living in the 21st century folks! Change those old dumb sayings! Don't teach them to your kids!
The other reasons being, maybe the person is not good looking. For the record, Geeta is decent on those counts! And we are also taught that 'Beauty is skin deep'! But where are we now? Take my example, I want my lifepartner to look like Madhuri Dixit. I don't understand that there's only one Dr. Nene who is there on this earth and I don't believe in divorce. I don't know what, but just because a person is not good-looking doesn't mean "freedom of thought" is thrown out of the window. The person is still eligible to think or in this case, dream.
Dreaming is fundamental to the nature of a human being. Everybody has the freedom to dream. Don't kill the freedom. You have nothing to lose if somebody has a dream. Dreams enhance the quality of life. You want to achieve your dreams and you strive harder towards living a better life. Dreams don't have constraints. Dreams are free. Let them be free.
I was discussing my favourite topic of how to choose a spouse with a good friend of mine. Upto the point I broached the particular topic she was explaining in great detail how things were moving and what she felt with each horoscope and photo being sent. I felt like I had hit a dead-end when I asked, "What kind of a life partner are you looking at?".
"Adi, I haven't thought about it"
"What? You are going to get married in a few days from now and you have not even thought of what kind of a life partner you want is it?"
"No Adi, it's not like that..." Silence.
I am waiting for the remaining part of the response. There's nothing. It's just tapered off into nothing.
So I begin my quest again not knowing whether I was making her comfortable or not. My purpose was to find out if she had an idea and was not willing to share with me or was it that she had no idea at all. Very soon, I was to find out that she had no idea at all!
"What happened? Did I ask something wrong? You don't want to tell me is it?"
"No Adi, I don't know. I haven't thought about it"
"Come on! You have completed your engg and are now working for the past one year. You must have seen many guys who must have inspired the thought 'He-could-be-my-lifepartner', haven't you? Hasn't this occured to you?"
"Adi, what you are saying is right. But when I tell this to my parents, they ask me, "Are you Queen Cleopatra for guys to stand in queue for you?"
Finally, there was atleast a recognition that she underwent what all human beings do. An intuitive way of living life. And according to something I read somewhere, women have better intuition. But this intuition was being killed by people around her.
"That's okay. What you get may finally not be what you wanted. But you still have the freedom to dream Geeta*. Let your mind free and dream of what you want. When you are dreaming don't think about whether you will get it or not. That's not how you dream. For example, I want a girl who looks like Madhuri Dixit, has Rekha's sensuality, but Nayantara's homeliness, speaks like Barkha Dutt, exudes the confidence of Kiran Bedi, treats my children like Mother Teresa, cooks like my mom, etc etc. But will I get such a girl? With due regards to my future lifepartner, I don't know is my answer. But I have a dream. More importantly I made use of my freedom to dream, that's all!"
(*Name has been changed to protect her identity)
After that, Geeta started explaining what kind of a lifepartner she was looking at. And how nice it would be to have a life with him. She had begun on a journey towards an uncertain destination for the first time in her 21 years of life. She was dreaming.
All of us have the fundamental freedom to dream. If you don't make use of that freedom you would be living a very one-dimensional life. Taking each day as it comes and not really expecting anything at all out of life. I meet tons of such people with this kind of a predisposition towards life. And they are not even aware they are living life that way. A very sad way, indeed! I cannot go on preaching my theories to everybody, Can I?
But I have been trying to fathom the reason as to why individuals turn out to be this way? Why are their wings of freedom clipped? Who does it? Do we do it ourselves consciously? Or is it the effect of some external force that makes us do this at an unconscious level?
One of the key reasons I found, across a sample of 5 people (all females, please note), is the pressure of getting you married off to somebody as quickly as possible. The idea is to shrug off the burden as soon as possible. "Are you Queen Cleopatra" is a classic example of how big a burden you have become! I was told that to every mother on this planet her kid looks like the moon! But here, the equation changes. We are living in the 21st century folks! Change those old dumb sayings! Don't teach them to your kids!
The other reasons being, maybe the person is not good looking. For the record, Geeta is decent on those counts! And we are also taught that 'Beauty is skin deep'! But where are we now? Take my example, I want my lifepartner to look like Madhuri Dixit. I don't understand that there's only one Dr. Nene who is there on this earth and I don't believe in divorce. I don't know what, but just because a person is not good-looking doesn't mean "freedom of thought" is thrown out of the window. The person is still eligible to think or in this case, dream.
Dreaming is fundamental to the nature of a human being. Everybody has the freedom to dream. Don't kill the freedom. You have nothing to lose if somebody has a dream. Dreams enhance the quality of life. You want to achieve your dreams and you strive harder towards living a better life. Dreams don't have constraints. Dreams are free. Let them be free.
