ARTILCES

IDIOMS OF IDIOTIC LIFE

By: Tenzin Dhadon Sharling
25 years hence, parents can zealously give their mandate on the baby’s hair colour, eyes even before the foetus is developed. (Courtesy: ABC )
Thus the essence of genetic inheritance and resemblance is dished out relentlessly and might as well become a trend of the yore. The alleged Midas touch of Science doesn’t seem to spare even the phoenix of human beings from its affectations. So is this a boon or a bane of science? Truly, freedom is about thought.
 
Freedom of mind is the highest manifestation of an individual’s right, contrary to the cliché “we demand freedom”… Freedom is created not bestowed!!! Choices are wide and varied… an ardent fan of H.H the Dalai Lama can share a savoury penchant for the nuisance of Osma. A media monger in me finds soothing solace in psychotherapeutic counselling.  

Life is no longer a romantic lit of perennial personification in Shakespeare’s literary adaptations and neither is it concurrent with the archive of positive regard. Like me, all the mortal species seem to be a frail victim of a tag line ‘Life gives its test first and its lessons later’, albeit sensibilities contemplate on life is a choice between ‘a glass half filled with milk or half empty with milk’. 

The wonders of ICT (information and communication technology) keep you spirited whilst the technically impaired aspects bog you down. Next door neighbours, adjacent cabins colleagues dissolve finer details over intranet, intercom… share joys and attribute agony over the phone. Yonder lovers connect and squabble through texts and post 11. Pm free (‘idea, hutch, airtel, cell one) talk value.  People who were hitherto citizens are today mere netizens. The very technocrat with his mundane affair of creating electronic communication to link, connect social phobia people seemingly contribute to escalating the course of atrocities of digital divide.  

The hi-tech amenities propelled to make life simpler apparently pedal the beneficiaries to tread the complexities, with lift to scale stories and treadmill to wear down the gained stones. It is no longer the survival of the fittest but rather thriving on being ‘cut and fit of the couture’ amidst a gamut of on- line advertising through hi5, Asian avenue, orkut, you tube, that unseeingly seem to hog the limelight. Yes, we have come along way from Newton’s` apple theory to apple towers and from renting VHS cassette to wholesome entertainment at mere click on the rear end of your touch-pad.   

The gamut of flipside is so overbearing that the people of .21st century even expect a remote control to open the door of opportunity. The best a man get can be the worst a friend will have. One grosses fame by being engrossed in derogatory affairs. Decades of toil require only a minute of mishap to rape your happiness into oblivion. Your actions can either make or mar your living. Leaders of third world countries wine on nuclear deals, cook border talks and drink befitting propositions while the obscure citizens die of malnutrition. It’s seeing the horizontal through vertical lenses. An eventful beginning with much gusto ends up as a gusty affair.

In an era devoid of ethereal aura, it is brands that define the product value where liabilities outline assets. With cosmetics concealing the skin deep beauty and beauty pageants being all about skin show, everything is fake, frivolous and very fictitious. The erst-while pristine society is now a consumerist hub, so sophisticated and very exquisite. Romance is legitimate only for the gadget freak hunks and its diamonds not demure rose to have the opposite sex flutter her eyelashes at him across a cappuccino bar.  

Religion preaches about subdued self but it’s also said that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth and not its mineral resources’. The prerogatives to making life meaningful are hiatus and tantrums, thus having brotherhood and fraternity generously sidestepped. The true self is expressed only in dreams which are involuntary deliberation of the yearnings in you, while the conscious you pose and preen for the shutterbugs. Accepting defeat is not on the cards any longer as you manage a cakewalk with your self defence mechanisms. 

Pathos of life overrules, abducting the coveted role of the ethos and hence the connotation of culture as a ‘way of life’ is a highway pedestrian for people to tread their hollowed instincts and dwell with ease at cross roads of cross culture. While the socially satisfied soul of the east pine for the economic prosperity of the west, the buoyant economy yearns for the impending spiritual gratification of the east.    

Some great transitions transcending time and space seem unremittingly empowering. It’s a pitchy trod from mere playing the field to drug scandals in Olympics and a huge leap from simple stable food to arresting array of delicacies to fighting obesity and a steep fall from television as an educational medium and films as mass medium to now being an idiot box and a mere silver screen respectively. The overdose of primetime entertainment sets the viewers plan their day around the marvellous assortment of soaps. We have come a long way from big bang to bullet theory to Mickey Mouse to Harry potter…sojourn of human creativity unravelling human mystery but we have made a very short, slapstick journey within the realms of quality and virtues.  

The world is amassed with characters, tall in knowledge but short in wisdom. Blueprint of social engineering (technique) based on science (episteme) frame the contents of academic curriculum leaving wee scope and space for value education and consequently we find ethics playing a second fiddle and the crux of humanity don an obscure avatar. 

It’s truly a surreal world and hence the benign being, H.H the Dalai Lama, becomes the breath of our lives. Your gauged self shoves into shy self with shrouded stigma following a mere gaze at the portrait of this spiritual simpleton. 

I dread this musky life holed up with ace uncertainty and yet we gloat about being bestowed with a precious human life. I refuse point blank to accept myself as the most sensible social animal. The bottom-line is what is the hearsay in procuring the preciousness? All we do is brood over our jinx with our gawky life. If you conceive a hapless figure in me cutting out a sorry figure, I `d rather give you the benefit of doubt. I am neither whining nor am I conning uncanny, but this is an innate expression of a soul who is gnawed by the idioms of life which is very much intimidating. If you are as confused as I am then you are also a victim of this syndrome. But I must say that if you remain unfazed and undaunted then you are close to being enlightened. A statutory warning: ‘you will have to challenge the barriers in life and not the vice versa.