CHAPTER 5
An Indian movie actor, who is reigning pop idol for over 20 years says, “Every morning I tell myself, I am the king, the only superstar as I know, I am just an ordinary human being, with average everything. Telling this makes me go and do my job well because, if I do not pep up my egoistic self to stupid heights, I cannot do what I have been doing successfully for last 20 years.”
He is right in his own right as he knows that in this competitive world, where all possessions and situations are ephemeral and one’s self-worth, based on these possessions are also short-lived, one needs to keep one’s egoistic subjective self popped up to feel good and keep going.
However, it must be added here that this actor is very mature, not young anymore and knows it very well that these talks he does only to himself. Deep within, there is a person, the ‘subjective I’, not the superstar, who masters the ‘I’ of the superstar well and keeps him in right shape. That is why he is not only a superstar but also a very successful person in life and living…
When you are young and up for grabbing all successes, which society has benchmarked for your self-worth, your mentors as well as peer group shall encourage you to be egoistically aggressive towards your goals of life and in the competitive world, if you wish to be successful. You shall naturally need this self-obsessed and egoistic mind consciousness of ‘me-only’. Somehow, being young and aggressively following these pursuits, automatically qualifies you to be restless.
Be warned, the economy and markets are out there in open to pamper this ‘me-only’ attitude in all people, especially the young and restless as they are their best customer. The markets with loads of brand slogans and advertisements sell you the egoistic attitude of selfish-self.
They keep telling you – ‘You Are The King’. They mold your mind consciousness into such a mode by repeatedly telling you – “Be Yourself”. This be yourself slogan is essentially an open invite to self-centered indulgence and instant-self-gratification. This is a sure invite to a consciousness of drift with the very powerful culture of consumption.
This drags you into the personality perspective, where your self-worth and success are defined by how much you possess and consume. Your self-worth becomes a market entity and a definitive object of calculability of consumptions.
This situation is far more complex and intense if you happen to be a young woman. Young women are being pushed to lot many things, which are new to their traditional cultural consciousness. They are more prone to being more split in their conscious choices and priorities.
The markets have sensed the new energy and force of the new empowered women and they are targeting the women as number one customer. This slogan of “Be Yourself” is a powerful cultural messaging and metaphor for the modern women to ride on the wave of defining the self-worth and success calculable only in terms of possession and consumption.
It is said, “Every healthy newborn is the most genius entity of the cosmos. However, it takes almost 25 years for the society and culture to make him or her a veritable stupid.” The core hypothesis of this saying is – when you are young, your consciousness has loads of popular cultural element for your value judgment. Your mind consciousness is largely a function of the socio-cultural milieus you are born and brought in and that is why what you think of and accept your ‘self’ and the subjective feeling of ‘I’ or ‘Me’, is essentially something the ambient culture makes you.
Only later, when you mature and slow down in life, you start to unlearn many of these cultural stupidities and then only, your mind consciousness has elements, which you can say is a definitive ‘you’.
This is therefore high time, you begin to ask yourself seriously – ‘Who Am I and Why Am I Who I Am?’ The question shall lead us to the door of sanity and symmetry in life and what we want from our lives.
The wise have said thousands of years back – ‘A Man/Woman Seeks What He/She Wants And Is Often Not At All What He/She Needs…’ This is true in almost all aspects of our life-living experiences, be it life, love, intimacy, relationships, wellness, success, prosperity, etc…
It is critical for our wellness that we seek to talk to our higher consciousness as what we want and what we actually need. This dualism of consciousness and life needs to be understood and accepted. If we can make distinction, success and wellness shall also make distinction in our favour.
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