Monday, October 24, 2011
what do we really want? that's the question we never fail to ask both ourselves and the people around us. but the catch here is, every single time we answer 'i don't know', do we really not know? or do we actually not want to know? it seems to me that more often than not, the answer's the latter. because we're afraid of knowing. because we're afraid of coming to terms with ourselves, of finding out or admitting that we're not the person we want or thought ourselves to be. because we're judging ourselves by how we think society would judge us. because we have this inbuilt perception of what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad, what should be, and what shouldn't be. we're always carrying this measuring tape and this weighing scale throughout our lives and we would like these tools to guide how we live our lives and to always measure up to be good. we would like to live in an absolute world. we would like to be absolute. but we forget that we are not. we are relative creatures. the measurements only mean something when compared to another, when we bestow a meaning to that number. we want to believe black is black, white is white, light is light, darkness is darkness. but just like how coldness is merely the absence of heat, darkness is merely the absence of light, these things only gain a meaning when relativity sets in. so we benchmark ourselves against society's prescribed and unspoken rules and standards. the question is, why are society's rules and standards necessarily "right" and "ideal"? obviously, the notion of right and wrong, good and bad are what keeps peace and security from prevailing in a society. but that doesn't make them the golden rules.
so, what if you end up doing things you never imagined you would do?
so, what if you find yourself compromising the values you held so dear to?
so, what if you discover you aren't the person you believed yourself to be?
so, what if you realize you don't want to be bounded by those rules?
maybe we really can fool ourselves to believe we do not know what we want.
because we fear what we want.
because we fear who we really are.
because we fear that we are really the monsters that hide inside of us.
because we fear that we are the monsters that keep us up late at night.
because we fear that there is nothing but greyness and dimness in this world.
because we fear that life isn't a simple arithmetic problem of 1 + 1 = 2.
because we fear that our values are just make-pretend.
so, many of us live life hiding from ourselves. and that leaves me wondering, how do we manage that.
we see only what we want to see.
we see only what we are prepared to see.
we know only what we want to know.
we are only who we allow ourselves to be.