Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The deception of man

In every moment of our waking lives, we seek something beautiful. Beautiful cannot be described in the extremely limited perceptions of a single person, but needs to be seen from the eyes of a flock. Anything could be beautiful - art, music, sport, competition and even war. It depends purely on the perspective of the seeker. The real question which is the basis of this discussion is, why do we seek to compare?

Is it intrinsically wired into us to strive to find something in comparison to which our life is gray? Do we always need the yardstick to self-deprecate? There are a few people, and very few at that, who have found everything beautiful within themselves. The rest of us are stuck in a rut where our every attempt to appreciate ourselves end in a quest for validation; and the world does not validate, or even attempt to tip the scales in our favor.

But does that make the search futile, or does it make the object of scrutiny frivolous? Something comparable is not unique, and what is not unique is not yourself. No piece of clothing is unique, no car you drive is unique, no house you build is unique - all of these can be replicated. But how you react to a situation is probably unique. The data you processes, the choices that you realize, the motivators that drive you and the actions that you perform are truly unique. The same cannot be replicated. The situation need not be life-threatening, but might be something as simple as looking at the sun-rise. What you see in that moment and what it means or how it affects you is unique. How do we compare that which is unknown even to us?

The answer is in the question - we don't. We don't compare because we are not fully aware. When we are aware, we attempt to dissect it and rationalize. As part of the rationalization we, unknowingly, bias our judgement. The world is very different when you look through the eyes of a deserted action figure lying on the side of the road, watching the approach of a truck that will forever alter it's visage. But across the road from the perspective of a bird chirping away towards a heedless sun, the world is rich and full. Neither of them got it right.

The world is what it is, and it doesn't care how you perceive it. The world is cold to opinion. Beautiful things are a way of the world to compensate for the life you wish you had. There is nothing missing in your life but self-realization. When you know what you want, you will get it. Try it, it works. You don't need any "Who moved my cheese?" or "7 Habits of highly successful people" kind of books to tell you what you need to do. You also don't need "The Alchemist" or "The monk who sold his Ferrari" kind of books to teach you deeper thought or morality. You don't even need to read this blog to know this.

There are no shortcuts, except the kind which gives you 5 years of joy and 50 years of pain. But the joy is in the journey. If you inherited 500 million dollars and you bought a Ferrari, and another person starved for 4 years but his business finally takes off and then he buys a Toyota, which car would give its owner more pleasure? But here I digress, for the topic is still the subject of comparison.

In the end, we are what we are. Comparison is the devil, for it promises us a different path. But unknown to you, you are already treading a path with no ancillary roads. There is no junction that allows you to cross onto that other path. We have to see the road we walk on, lest the monster that awaits ahead swallow us while we are lost in a silent soliloquy about the virtues of everyone else's life.