Destructive Distillation

Idealism is defined as “utopianism”, the constant quest for that perfect world with a certain set of beliefs and ideals. Idealism is a dream. The dream of doing something perfect and bringing something genuinely good in to the world. It is most importantly sticking to a set of beliefs and ideals come what may; through good times and bad and through prosperity and hardships. It is living life to live the dream.

It is only the strong that can stand up to their ideals. The demands of such virtues are high; focus determination and strength. The youth are the strongest segment of population because we have so few worries and fears thus fewer weaknesses. No fear of their future, no fear of failure and no worries of food, family and work. That is how the dreamers and doers among our ancestors lived. We are afraid to live like that. We prefer a soft quilt to strong stand. We accept what comes our way and flip sides when convenient. We tread on our own ideals when in pain and change our beliefs to comfort ourselves. As time progresses our attitudes are becoming increasingly defeatist.

It is in the youth, we have an impressionable mind with power to reason. Past it we lose the impressionability and before it we lack reason. What we see, hear and read impact the way we think and hence the way we live. Our generation has begun to denounce the habit of reading books (easily the ultimate trove for knowledge, perspective and thus wisdom), forgotten the beauty and sophistication of quality, accepted the mob tendency of being mediocre and worst of all lost the fervour to dream and accomplish something. The innocence is lost by the pragmatic approach to life. Most of us are going to end up there anyway but why start doing it now.

Mankind always contrives to make the world better than it always was. Our power to dream is pivotal in this. It is the youth alone who can dare to dream. The worst thing that we are plagued with right now is not being able to dream big. Even if we do, the spirit of competition is seldom seen. All I can see is insecurity over someone else's progress. We see dreaming as a crime. The more vagrant you are, the more hip you seem. This is the disillusioned perception of the majority of our youth these days. What are we at this age if we are not dreamers?

Poets and writers from times immemorial have sung praise about the joys and misgivings of youthfulness and shunned the miseries of the elderly. Complaints about "youth these days" are as old as civilization itself. But most civilised societies tolerated youth and their meddling with beliefs and ideals. We have always known that it is in this period of callousness with the power to dream that the most astonishing of works are produced. Mozart, Shakespeare, Newton, Cauchy, Machiavelli and Rembrandt are all testament to this. But if those poets would see us now and witness our plight, would they do the same?

We are more focused on a stable life than a wonderful one. What we have failed to realize is the power of dream, thought and action; the enhancement of our own lives that comes with the little impact of our work on the world we live in.

This is one of those things which I have written about a long existing latent idea. It is such a relief when you have finally paid thought to these minor post-its lying in some nook and corner in your head.

Aavu Vyaasam. Translated from telugu is the ‘Cow essay’. There is this story behind this idiom, parents and elders tell us in traditionally telugu households. A small kid is asked by his teacher to speak about a few topics. But he has learnt only one essay, that of the cow. So each time he is asked to talk something he slowly leads his speech to something related to cow and then conveniently talks about the cow. Something like when asked about “Fish” he would say, “Fish are in swimming in the pond. On the bank stands a cow. It is white in colour and has 4 legs.. It eats grass …..”. Similarly when asked about the Village he would say; “A Village has many houses. People live in these houses. They have cows. Cows are white in colour ….”.

Well, whats interesting about this seemingly trivial story is its applicability to me and almost everyone else. Each one has got an ‘aavu vyaasam’ of his own. Sometimes we are gripped with some idea, a terrible infatuation on something or someone. Maybe some untenable situation arises or gross injustice is done and we are left voiceless. Whatever the possessed thought may be it props up in the conversations having the faintest of connections. We tend to vent our frustration, express our dire need, beg for help and all other such tendencies creep in. We subconsciously steer conversations to fulfill our needs, be it egoistical or materialistic.

• My dad always comes around to the point of how big a criminal I am not for not utilizing the opportunities present, for not having enough grip on my subject and my whiling away time.
• My grandmother always talks about not having a own house inspite of having all other comforts.
• A teacher incessantly complains of the decadence among the students of my class.
• A friend is going on and on of how good (yikes! make that great else i am dead) her boyfriend is.
  
• While another cant stop lamenting of how miserable life is.
  
• A classmate cant stop on of how others have been unfaithful to him, always "gossip"ped about him and bad mouthed him behind his back
• Another leads conversations to some lame telugu movie and its success.

As for me I have lots of Aavu vyasams. Er… This post is already too long.