Secret Ways : Character Building

[Warning]
I wrote this post in a hurry. The sentences might seem rather long and my thought process rather choppy. Be warned. Proceed with low expectations on clarity of thought and expression.
[/Warning]

I have, for some time now, been disillusioned with the road map of a normal life. You grow up doing the things most normal children do - you go to college with dreams of a successful career and comfortable life, you want to fulfill all your parental obligations and keep them happy. You try and reach higher for better colleges, better jobs, higher pay, better comforts etc. In my opinion, the ultimate worth of being a lead rat in this rat race is really nothing. Nada. Zip. You still, despite your best efforts, go through life much along the same lines as a lesser accomplished individual except that the degree of refinement in your life is higher.

Don't read this the wrong way - this is not to say that ambition is bad. In fact, I think it is the very essence of what makes us better individuals. People without any ambition are the worst offenders from the perspective of this post.

My point is that despite all the fruits of your ambition, your life is fundamentally no different and hence, no richer, texturally speaking, than a life confined and stifled by normalcy. Let me lay it out for y'all - this grand plan that governs just about everyone's life (including mine)

go to school-> (harder/faster/better routine) -> good college -> (continue to follow harder/faster/better routine) -> good high paying job -> higher studies (abroad) -> (you know the words - harder/faster/better) -> get into a job -> start worrying about immigration.

Meanwhile, your personal life follows this routine -
you hit 25 or something nearby -> you've already been dating or been in a few relationships -> look to get married -> get into this "save, save, save for your future" mentality -> get married (either because it's the right time or you've to fulfill parental obligations or your girlfriend/boyfriend is yanking your chain or maybe you really want to(!)) -> move into plush apartment -> furnish apartment with the latest and greatest that your combined salary can afford -> have elaborate parties, hob nob with sheeple and discuss politics and economics.

Aren't you already disgusted with the pointlessness of a life awash with the gray of boredom and accepted norms?

Depending on the green card situation, your job stability and the pressure from back home you (along with your spouse) decide to start a family. -> buy a house (this can take a long time and significant investment) -> deck up your house in the usual way - game room (with attendant giant screen TV), living room also with large flat screen TV, plush leather furniture etc etc -> pop babies -> green card approved (it could very well be that your green card is approved before you decide on a baby).

I hope you see where this is going - other individuals, whom you left on the wayside of accomplishment as you sped past them on wings of ambition, have, I'm sorry to say, a life that is darned similar to yours. In some cases, way better than yours.

Coming full circle, the ultimate worth of running this rat race? NOTHING. A life time of effort and sacrifice and yet, no sense of fulfillment, no real improvement in your sense of self worth.

Have you really thought of what makes you content in life? I am not talking about the happiness you get from taking that adventurous vacation or going sky diving or hand gliding or whatever is the current rage amongst sheeple trying to be different from the rest of the sheep and hence, exclusive. I am talking about happiness that can only come from being contented in and with life.

Most people over compensate for the abundance of boredom/discontentment/disillusionment that is a direct consequence of the stifling grip that a plain ol' vanilla life has on your life and future. I do too.

The following thoughts run quite tangentially to the point I was trying to make all this while.

Have you ever stopped and wondered what really separates you from a kid, any kid, growing up in a slum somewhere in the world? just pure chance. I'll repeat, just pure chance. I do not subscribe to the argument that one should be grateful for what one has and all that jazz. My point is more along the lines of what are you doing with it? Just living it as is? Just going through it with a mindlessness of a drone that wakes up periodically to the reality of its meaningless existence but by the sheer inertia of a lifetime of laziness, just sinks back to the torpor that has been the hallmark of its life?

The sheeple that most people are, end up pissing away their infinitely more valuable lives, one day at a time just by pursuing their fascination with self gratification through living life in the trenches of accepted norms. A normal life that guarantees them a secure, safe life peppered with episodes (often lengthy ones at that) of escapism when each tries to mold himself/herself into something exclusive in a vain attempt at being different from the herd. From what I've been told, being a normal sheep is highly over rated.

Some people are actually somewhat satisfied with their lives(!!!) and ever so often indulge themselves in some form of escapism to compensate for the boredom in their life. They feel renewed anew after an episode of escapism and feel like they can go through the drudgery they think is life for a little longer before they need another break. I think I am in this stage now. And if you are anything like me, this feels like exactly a drug habit - you need fixes faster than before and each with a bigger/better high than the last. You know where that story is going to end don't you?

Sigh! I sometimes find my cynicism too cynical.

But, my question is just this - What is the point of it all? Is there any? Is there meant to be any? Is terminal boredom a fact of life, a way of life even?

What does one have to do to BE alive? to FEEL alive?

• No one is really free of the ideological inheritance which he carries within himself as a child of a given generation. This, in essence, is his conformal "world view". What are yours?

• Do not equate unawareness with non-existence. Everyone is, at some point, guilty of this depending on the degree of their hubris on how well read they think they are on any given subject.

• If all/most of your personal heroes are iconoclasts of this or past generations, does that make you one? Isn't this self-contradictory - that you have personal icons but still consider yourself an iconoclast?
  

• When does 'belief' turn into 'faith'?

Feel free to answer any of these questions or post more of your own.

A 93 yr old blues legend, David "Honeyboy" Edwards. It was a once in a lifetime experience!

The Venue: Regatta Jazz Bar
Thoughts : A very intimate setting - a smallish stage designed to accommodate a trio (most jazz bands are a trio). Ironically, the audience which was mostly corporate, rich, white American paid good money to see a wizened old black man who at many points in his life lived outside "normal" society as either a slave or in dire poverty in the infamous projects of Chicago. This wizened old black man sang songs about being poor, about cotton picking, about having the "white man" blues and rich corporate white Americans and one brown, relatively poor man paid good money to be there. Figure that one out!


Disclaimer: I do have a romanticized view of the delta blues. So, read the rest taking into account this bias. Also, account for the positive bias coming from witnessing something from another era, something that I probably will not see again anyway.

The Music:
What can I say that hasn't already been said before in better prose that I can ever muster? Delta blues speaks in rustic, earthy tones about a hard life, about the problems of the African American (as they are known now) in a by gone era. Lyrics aside, the simplistic (only to the ear) rhythms and leads of the guitar, the pace and style of vocals are to say the least, endearing. The rhythm, to my ear, sounds identical in all the songs but what rides on it - the vocals and finger picking style guitar - is absolutely fantastic. Closing your eyes and listening to the simple chugging rhythm, heart soaring with woeful vocals or the wails of the harmonica (did I mention that Honeyboy's manager was blowing the horn with absolute mastery?) took me to an altogether different place.

This was a refreshing change from contemporary blues/rock where production (over) emphasizes the music producing a wall of sound. Though this in itself is an absolute art producing "layers" of music that have been the forte of many bands, one of my favorites being Porcupine Tree, Honeyboy's "return to the roots" acoustic music was a very mellowing and peaceful experience.

People are prejudiced and opinionated. That's the plain truth of it. They have their set views of the world, a world view, a colored looking glass through which they view the world, interpret it and most importantly, make peace with it. This world view is a strong anchor and helps people maintain order in their otherwise meaningless lives. It is a means for people to band together and to belong, to love and be loved. It is a cocoon, a shelter that people will pay the highest price to defend.

with this preamble, let us examine how new born babies - a chance at something completely new, fresh, with absolutely no allegiances to anything but pure innocence - are molded to have the same prejudices (or worse), the same world view (or worse) as their parents. These parents, drunk with the arrogance of their hubris, their infallibility, willfully choose to paint on this canvas with their palette of vile colors. Presuming that they are the absolute best role models for something that can be enticed, cajoled, taught, schooled into learning anything, they butcher this innocence with their own insecurities, their opinions, their likes and dislikes, narrowing forever the possibilities of hope for something fresh and new. These forced indoctrinations sometimes go awry and lead children to develop their own personality with their own tortured world view which they in turn pass onto their children perpetuating a cycle that only mutates.

For the reader who must already be indignant, I must make haste to add that I do not include what has become basic civil behavior (please, thank you etc) and a whole host of other generalities in this mutable parent-child world view transfers.

Please observe the children around you and how they absorb their parents' behavior, their insecurities, their attitudes and turn out to be a chip of the old block, if you will. Its largely a necessary evil.

When everything in your life - your job, your daily routine, your so called hobbies - is seemingly dead and does not enhance your sense of fulfillment then no price is too small to pay for that particular cause, idea or thing that makes you feel alive.

You will cling on to it even at great personal cost just because it makes you feel alive.

When and how you pick your battle is a great test of character and judgment. More often than not, great potential is frittered away just because deadened people make wrong choices and decisions of the battles that they decide to fight to the end.

and really wish I could talk to you more often.