Our Psyche

Everyone of us is as guilty as the cuckoo bird who lays its eggs in someone's else nest, leaving its offsprings to grow with an alien family, thus shirking parental responsibility. It is materialism.

How many of us have not hankered for this and that as a fashion fad of the times? If you care to remember the nylon skin stockings, cell phones, mp3 players and the tomagotchi, must-haves that we crave, stoked by the makers' savvy media marketing.

We aspire to a house, a car and a lifestyle incomparable, much to our detriment usually as we find ourselves saddled and sinking deeper and deeper in the quicksand of debt-equity. We have not stopped to understand enough that these as good as borrowed goods are technically not assets but liabilities.

We are a crass lot. Unable to communicate the real us and our true selves because we have been conditioned to hide our miserable lot behind a thicket of false ostentation, materialism and a living image of imagined wealth, confidence and beauty.

We have de-sensitised ourselves so much that we are oblivious to much of what is spinning around us at a dizzying rate. It is someone else's world, not mine. I live my own and you yours. We have insulated and securitized ourselves in the snug material comforts we own. The only proclaimation of our personal worth , esteem and identity.

We surround ourselves with wants and desires, not needs. We think we will be happy if we have a pet or a boyfriend or girlfriend. Or a social circle. A shallow dotted circle that is. And material goods. This if we care to recall usually gets shelved after a time.

We psychologically deny many of the things we see with our eyes and feel in our heart to be true but which because it runs contrary to the mainstream herd instinct ,we suppress and proclaim its non-existence. We do not have the guts to step out of the line of mediocrity and count ourselves among the privileged few to live our lives as we richly need.

We have to be with the in-crowd. We are living out our lives as the marketing economy wants us to. Not what we really need.

We have not reached into our inner soul to find that true happiness that will certainly matter. We have glossed over many a bad experience or that of others, pushing it to the backest of our minds.

We wrap ourselves in a web of lies and denial. We say one thing but deep inside we actually feel another. We have become masters of our own deceit and downfall. Artificial as we come, artificial as we go.

What we spill out are someone's words, feelings and reactions. Some books we read, some conversations we heard and someone we spoke with. Is what we say what we experienced and know? More often than not, no.

We think we are writing and saying something meaningful. But when we deconstruct, we find that it means zilch and it is total nihilism.

It is time that each of us wake up to our real selves, open our eyes and hearts to feel once again and to understand.

We will truly be human again if we can do this.