Thursday, April 02, 2009

Violence

After coming back to India, I have met a lot of, so-called, unconventional people. Folks who have quit their regular jobs for the sake of some ideology, who have not been school educated, who do not vaccinate their kids etc. In my interactions with them, I have many times a mostly covert but sometimes overt aggression towards, so-called, conventional folks. I have also observed this violence (in words and thoughts) flaring its ugly head in myself. This needs to be worked on for this violence is what causes the us vs them divide. Now, this thought is quite well known but the purpose of this post is to point out one of the factors that cause this violence.

Most people who quit their conventional roles to do some thing 'alternative' end up facing a lot of violence from friends, family, strangers etc. I guess many of the outbursts I have heard and some of my own feelings can be attributed to this. Constant nagging about the 'silliness' and 'foolishness' of their decisions and an unwillingness to hear them out from a majority of folks is something that could disturb even the most well grounded and calm people. It certainly requires a tremendous amount of courage and inner strength to deal with all this and still remain absolutely peaceful and loving!

4 comments:

Sneha said...

True Partha. It is just the beginning for you.. there is a lot more to come! So keep your calm and good luck :)

Karthik said...

"It certainly requires a tremendous amount of courage and inner strength to deal with all this and still remain absolutely peaceful and loving!"

At the risk of presumption & preaching to the master, an alternate way of seeing that is encapsulated in your closing sentence. Anyone who emerges sane from this period, is bound to be a sage. :) I thought that is part of your goals - to achieve a level of personal discipline and peace.

Also, for every 10 nay-sayers, there is one yay!!-sayer who has seen & believes in your goals & abilities. As they say, தம்பி உடையான் படைக்கு அஞ்சான்! ;)

Jeevita said...

Good luck!

Partha said...

@Sneha / Jeevitha - Thx for the wishes..

@KG - You are totally right.. that is part of the aim... and probably the most important part..