IM-PACT!!

One thing which I have started believing very strongly is that hypocrisy in a person is a function of time. Its very relative, and like many other things the definition of hypocrisy changes with time and generation.

When I was a kid and saw elders around me smoking and drinking, I vowed to myself and to my mom that I will never do it. I was so dam sure of this that as a kid my hatred towards it was more than evident. I can bet that everyone like me must have taken such vows at some point of time in their lives, and almost everyone has done something or the other against it. I drink and smoke occasionally with friends without the slightest of hitch and the disgusting face which I used to make on seeing people smoking around me when I was a kid has transformed into an 'I dont care' expression. Amazing transformation!! No remorse, no guilt, no value of the broken promise which I gave to myself as a kid..

Indeed I am a hypocrite person. Very hypocrite. But when I saw that slowly and gradually all people around me, my friends, etc also began drinking or smoking occasionally or regularly, I was not hypocrite any longer. Some of my friends protested the idea of drinking till very recently and then suddenly I discover that even they have started. And thats when I was no longer a hypocrite person.

Forget my friends. What about you or any tom, dick, or harry? Forget smoking and drinking also. Some people might not have started smoking or drinking, and its fairly possible that they will never start. What about the million other thoughts and promises you established as a kid? Someone said he would never drive fast when he grows up, someone said she would not lose her virginity before marriage, still someone said he would never argue with parents, and someone said she would never make a boy friend. As a kid when we saw our seniors making fun of teachers we saw them with disgust and promised to ourselves that we would never do that, and then shamelessly as we grew, we did even more than what our seniors did. The list can go on.................

This is an amazing issue. When a single person undergoes a transformation of thought or values its hypocrisy. The moment this transformation catches up with masses, the word hypocrisy ceases to exist and is replaced by words like trend, shift of value, necessity, demand of situation, etc. Just because the entire group of people change there is no one to point out the hypocrisy. But isn't that itself a hypocrisy? And if the situation demands you to transform your long established thoughts in some way or the other then should the word 'hypocrisy' even exist in this context? 

One argument which I have is that when we decide some values for us we do that with a given set of information. As a kid I vowed against drinking, smoking, driving fast, eating outside food, making a girlfriend, arguing with parents ever and what not. As I grew up my mind extracted more information from the world. I realized in class 7 that making a girlfriend is fine. I realized further that parents are parents but initially they are human beings and so they can be wrong at times and so to drive your point which could be right would sometimes require arguing with them. I realized further as I grew that having beer sometimes in limits is fine when socializing and having fun with friends because it releases endorphine in your brain which de-stresses you at times. And the bigger part is that I am happy doing all this because in some way or the other it has  benefited me in various contexts. So having said that, are human beings even hypocrite? Or do we blame evolution and limited information on the basis of which we establish values for ourselves? The debate can go on and on so I would rather stop here. 

Anyways.. I just got a call from a childhood friend asking me out for a pint of beer. :-) See you........ :-)

Small and big incidents of our life speak to us in parables. Sometimes the message is clear and sometimes its not. Well we have heard the saying many times that happiness should come from within and that be it sunshine or rain, but if the internal whether is nice then eternal happiness happens even if external things change. But thats really difficult and moreover by the time you have successfully trained your mind to be independent of the external happenings and be in a constant state of happiness, half of your life is already gone and the other half is too short :-)

So the conclusion is that for people of this age who have emotions and who's emotions depend on external stimulus, its nearly impossible to not make your happiness a slave and a prisoner of externalities.. Anyways now that the background is set let me share my today's encounter with an externality and how it made me happy.

I purchased a pair of sunglasses today, and when I put them on while driving I realized how priceless they were and what I have paid to get it is peanuts.. Well before I go ahead I must tell you that when the color of the sky looks like it is about to rain, and when the same reflection of slight darkness is reflected on the earth and in the trees it gives me pleasure, makes me forget my tiredness which comes in the blazing sun, and makes me want to party.

This is what my cheap new sunglasses did today. Changed the color of the sky and the earth even during the blazing sun, made me happy while driving, made me forget my tiredness, and made me put on loud music in my car :-).. This is something which my previous costly Rayban sunglasses couldnt do. Sounds not too great?? well ask me, this is an amazing thing which happened with me. 

A mere pair of sunglasses had the power to behave in a Godly manner, to change the color of the skies and the earth, to make the trees dark green, to change the blazing sun into one which gets hidden behind black clouds. My sunglasses just accidentally created happiness for me...... Artificially!!