The wanderer of the superficial world doesn’t know the difference between: what’s actually real, but which is commonly branded false and what’s fake, yet it is so glorified, that even a sane man seems to be indulged into this superfluous forgery. I want to know, when does this wanderer becomes the native part of this duplicity? When does impracticality becomes sanity? When does superficiality become an inclination towards happier life?
So once there was a man, a motivational speaker of sort. He was called to talk to a class of students. He came in, His collared shirt and crisp pair of pants just bolstered the grand appearance that he was putting. He pronounced his words well and his voice exuded importance. His gestures and facial expressions matched whatever significance he was projecting. In the minds of the others, he was intellectual. For some, he was excellent. But when I listened to his words, they barely meant anything. His voice was exceptional, yes. But whatever he was saying was not even conspicuous or meaningful. So, after the speech he went down the stairs and into the parking lot, got into his Maruti 800 and sped off with a trail of smoke behind him. The same guy who encouraged us to build our life, in such a way that one day you could drive a Mercedes.
I try to shake off this thought that we are superficial. Yet the hard reality barges in without any forewarning. Ruins everything? Maybe. Hurts our social well-being and morals? A definite: Yes. See, the thing about morals is they are circumstantial, may change when stuck in tricky situations. When there’s chance of survival or a win, then we tend to bend these so called “Principles”. Then we begin to wonder: “We don’t need to be deep to endure in this world, we just have to fake it, so what if we are bending our morals a little?! Won’t hurt anyone. Right?” Wrong! The world has taught us to look at the beautiful and handsome models that rule every page of the magazine or advertisements. All those beautiful faces and beautiful bodies so pungently epitomize the shallow part of being a human. They embody looks that wins and conquers this superficially powered narcissistic world. These advertisements make us feel, that phony things like appearances or good body is all we need, and if you don’t buy these things you’ll be unhappy forever. They (the world) feed off knowing that you will buy these things, because guess what? You ditched your principles long ago and now you live with your sense of shallowness, that you feel honoured of. So, don’t you see you are hurting Yourself?
Coming towards adjective that defines the superficial folks: “fake-ness” and duplicity. Our “Oh so proud!” motto that just scrapes the outsides, to make it shine, so that we could be amongst the other people, who are doing the same, but knowing we still have rusted insides.
Vulnerability: We don’t want people to know our weaknesses. So, we do what? We fake it, we pretend that we are heart-less altogether. But there are these whole-hearted people who encompass three really scary mechanisms “Courage”, “Compassionate” & “Vulnerability”. I don’t trust these people. I mean these “People” seems to accept their vulnerabilities and are so open to the world, fully naked and vulnerable. They don’t think twice about things someone usually feel insecure about like, “Initiating sex with your husband”, “Initiating sex with your wife”, “Asking someone out, knowing they are out of your league”, etc. But on the other hand, there are these really precautious people who are always like “How do I look?”, “I should have more money to spend?”, “What do people think about me?”, “Is this what people expect of me?”. And the fucking selfish world, who knows how to exploit these weaknesses; always seems to win. I always wanted to know how a whole-hearted being survive in this world of cayotes who always seems to feed off the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of others. I get “Courage”, the spirit to face the fear, the brevity of trepidation. And I have started to be more “compassionate” towards myself, that’s the first step towards being compassionate towards others. I really get that, but the thing I don’t get is that how can one lay out all our vulnerabilities out in the open for everyone to exploit and then don’t even worry about the consequences. Maybe that’s why I don’t trust these people. We feel like we have to hide a part of ourselves every day for many formative years, which means we are neglecting other parts of ourselves that should be receiving precious energy. So, when we finally do come out, we often confuse this as dealing with our issues, when in fact, this is just the beginning to dealing with what our issues really are.
It’s beyond hard to be vulnerable with someone else, especially when so many of us are uncomfortable with being vulnerable with ourselves. Admitting that life isn’t peaches and cream isn’t fun, but the less honest we are with ourselves, the more guarded we become, and the more we keep our walls up.
Our insecurity is beyond high from all the shame we felt growing up, and even after we’ve dealt with it, it feels all too real when we are hurt again in the process.
Numbness: We have perfected to numb our vulnerabilities, but what we don’t get is that we numb our feelings in the process. We cannot suppress one’s feelings, and carry on with others, we are not made like that. Stoic life cannot be what everyone dreams of, maybe?!!
Yes, no one can head-on deal with their feelings. Suppressing them, disregarding them, having all those pent-up feelings is maybe how they deal with it. Sure, you just want to close the doors to the world, sit in your comfortable chair and read or listen to music and tune out all the problems and be isolated form the society. But if we do that nothing will ever happen, will it?
All About Nothing 