Since long, may be 5000 years back, the wise of humanity have kept reminding us of something core and cardinal to human lives and that is – there is a definitive cyclicality, an unavoidable causality between milieu and consciousness. This means, your consciousness is affected by change of tangible and intangible ‘elements’ in the milieu you live and the collective consciousnesses and unconsciousnesses in turn change the milieus…
This is the primary energy in all changes in individual thinking, perceptions as well as socio-cultural acceptance. If we accept this premise, we can decipher all emerging and established social and cultural norms and changes.
In contemporary social and cultural milieus of modern human living, it is being made out by psychologists as well as common people that trends in marriages are changing fast and younger generation is growingly being ‘averse’ to marriages, ‘commitments’ and ‘responsibilities’ in intimate relationships…
Now, if we accept the above-mentioned premise, we can also accept that such a notion is arguably just a ‘perception’, more being ‘made out’ than ‘actually is’. How and why?
Any perception, be it individual or social, is a precarious and ever-evolving mix of grains of truth and elements of illusions. Most ‘perceptions’ can therefore be termed as ‘Trullusions’ – mix of grains of truth and illusions. This happens because human brain has this natural mechanism to arrive at a judgment and decision, even when facts and concrete data for the same is not available. Such judgments are ‘perceptions’…
For a population of billions of young men and women all over the globe in different social and cultural milieus, it is impossible to have a truth and reality, based on concrete facts and data about marriages and intimate relationships among youth. What therefore comes out in media or in popular talks is varied forms of perception – ‘Trullusions’.
Like, even if we accept the data that 50% marriages end up in divorce in USA, it cannot be derived from this fact that people are growingly becoming averse to marriages. The issue of divorce involves many elements of personal and socio-cultural domains and therefore, for a holistic fact, all aspects must be presented with concrete data, which is never available…
The idea is; the assertion that young people are growingly becoming averse to marriages and are wary of ‘lasting commitments’ in intimate relationships, is essentially a ‘juicy slice’ out of the bigger fruit of contemporary consciousness in modern milieus. This is much like the ‘un-employability’ perception, we talked about earlier. This we need to talk about when we create perceptions about modern youth, their perceptions, their life-living choices, their mindsets and overall consciousnesses…
We all first need to accept – Modern age is the age of skepticism. Why and how?
The new millennium has heralded the crumbling of many old and established rules of life and living. In all domains of life-living, one thing, which has energized this skepticism is growing liberty and evolving empowerment of all minds, be it poor or rich, man or woman, high or low. The driver of this energy is science and technology, not ‘perceptions’. The energy of liberty and empowerment is expressed in the singular domain of ‘inquisitiveness’. An empowered and liberated person – man or woman, shall definitively do the common thing – that is, questioning everything, which he or she is faced with. This is because liberty and empowerment comes through energy of questioning the status quo…!
The entire idea of empowerment of modern people, especially the young is aimed at singular common desire – Excellence and brilliance. The young people are inquisitive, they are skeptical, they tear apart all status quoism because they are not willing to accept anything mediocre and ‘just okay’. This is something humanity must rejoice…
The contemporary youth must not be labeled as in ‘denial-mode’ of established currency. Rather, what they are doing is questioning the utility, worth and validity of all premises of old-established order, not exclusively for personal pride but also for singular attainment of ‘excellence’. Yes, it may be admitted that there are sure troubles with this contemporary youth attitude and the way it is handled.
Globally, most troubles of humanity are not because of corruption but because of mediocrity. Youth are only ‘averse’ to mediocrity. Because; for modern achievers of contemporary times; ‘just okay’ won’t do. Mediocrity is not acceptable. Only the optimum should and would do, if not the best…!
Somehow, this may be labeled as ‘seed-trouble’ of idea and idealism of ‘empowerment’. As this empowerment idea and idealism is new and still evolving, there are teething troubles, which are there but often, blown out of proportion…
So, if modern youth, especially the young women are skeptical about marriages, as they are in old-established mould, they are essentially just being inquisitive, for the sake of not ‘denial’ of marriages but for ‘excellence’ of marriages. They just are averse to the mediocrity, which marriages have generally been in human history. As contemporary marriages have come out of the old mould yet the new shape is still precarious, the skepticism of youth about utility and righteousness of marriage is only natural.
As we talked earlier, when men were the exclusive ‘employer’, they sought ‘excellence’ in ‘employees’ they wished to hire. Now that women have this new found status of turning into ‘employer’, she also does the same. Naturally, this age-old ‘market-dynamics’ of marriages have changed. There are employers and employees with different sentiments and attitudes than what it used to be. As there shall always be ‘perceptional-difference’ and ‘mindset-gap’ between employer and employee, the stress in marriage is bound to be there and even aggrandized. New mould of marriage is still evolving and the contemporary chaos looks like there but is surely transitional.
Naturally, this energy, its process and mechanism is not as ideally streamlined and as symmetrical, as one would desire but then, it is early days of this contemporary evolution towards excellence and fight against mediocrity.
The cardinal wisdom is – Modern youth shall have to see and accept that mediocrity has a rule and a pattern. Contemporary youth, who wish to avoid mediocrity and accept excellence in life and living need to see and accept that mediocrity creeps in, when we make choices and decisions in life, based on ‘perceptions’ and partial (sliced) truths and realism. Excellence is established when we make choices and decisions based on definitive data, factsheets and holistic perspectives.
Therefore, the very energy of skepticism must be directed against ‘perceptions’, ‘part truths’ and what we earlier mentioned as ‘Trullusions’. Skepticism should not stop till data and facts are arrived at…
Marriages, relationships, career, family, social behavior, all actions must never be decided on ‘Trullusions’ but singularly on definitive data and irrefutable facts. And, as we all live in a world, which is in big transition – remnants of old order still lingering and new social order still taking shape; the youth have to observe poise, patience and perseverance in their attitude and demeanor. When things are evolving, we have to be more wary of trullusions and wait patiently for new, objective facts to emerge.
Thankfully, in most societies, there are people, who are collating facts and coming up with quantitative realism in all walks of social life, which helps us shed populist perceptions. Marriages and their troubles are now not new and now we have enough facts to delve deep into the definitiveness of realism of marriages.
Current researches list that divorce rates are highest among couples in their 20s. By far the highest divorce rates have been among men and women aged 25-29. Almost half of divorces happen in the first 10 years of marriage, and the rate is especially high between the fourth and eighth anniversary.
The researches attempt to pin down the chief perpetrator of stress and strangulation of marriages. There are so many reasons and they may seem varied but when we zero down on the core common causes, some interesting but very predictable causes come up for conscious deliberation. As the causes are perceptible and common, this surely is the cause of celebration, for we all can skip those ‘troubles’ and enhance marital bliss and life span…
In the research, the common factors, that came up as chief elements responsible for divorce are –
A respondent in the research survey said – ‘I was too young to understand what marriage meant. In your 20s, you think you’re an adult and in control of your life, but you’re basically an idiot. You don’t have the self-knowledge you think you do.’
He added – There are learning which comes only after a disaster hits you. What I can accept and practice in my second marriage never even existed in my mind and probably I could never have accepted then. Now I do as, accepting something as first virtue is very tough but practicing them as secondary prudence is easy…
Another respondent stressed on the need and failure of communication, especially the forms that communication takes, before and after marriage. She says – ‘When I remarried, my main priority was to establish that I and my new husband could manage differences fairly and with compassion. I asked, are you open to talking about it? Could we be honest, and could we be vulnerable? Because that’s what everyone wants in a friendship. It’s also what everyone wants in a marriage. Not only was I not capable of that at 21, I didn’t even know it existed.’
Interestingly, a respondent raised a basic question. She said, ‘What is love? This was the most searched question on Google in 2012, followed in 2013 by what is twerking? There are probably as many answers as there are searches. One answer is that it might not be what we think it is, if we think about it at all. We never talked about whether we loved each other, or what love meant. We sort of unawaringly ran away from that question.’
Many respondents listed the importance of knowing ‘I’ or self well, before entering marriage. ‘Who are you? What do you want to do with your life? And what exactly are they?’, a respondent said. He said this question is not only for self but also for the person you love and wish to marry.
These questions reflect about the core personality of a person and while people can change a bit, the fundamental person is probably always still there. That is why, it is very important that you know the core personality of both well – yourself and the person you love and wish to marry…
That is why communication before marriage about the journeys ahead is crucial. Both man and woman must ask each other – What you want in the coming 10 years from now and how liberal or dogmatic you are about their attainment. The answers must be true and then both man and woman can clearly see what are common and compatible in them and what not, which can grow in time and invite disaster…
The simple idea is – Acquisition of knowledge is a troubling process, however, knowledge empowers truly and life’s core and critical enterprises like love and marriages should always follow the trajectory of knowledge and communication of this knowledge. No acquisition and attainment can have lasting worth and utility if not aligned with persevered enterprise.
To sum up things in a happy note, someone said, ‘Marriages may be made in heaven but so are thunders and lightening.’ Therefore, earthy prudence must never leave the heavenly postulations…
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