Yesterday it dawned upon me that we are, in fact, living entirely artificial lives. Our thinking, manners of speech and action, clothing and even our emotions are self-deceptive.
All the time we think of something that is quite contrary to our own way of thinking, something which is dominated by some external force. For instance, a student thinks about his female cla** fellows or he thinks of new fashion trends to impress others but actually he wants to carry on his studies. A teacher takes complete interest in higher-level cla**es where he will have the opportunity to show his maximum talents and subsequently tries to avoid lower level cla**es where he is equally needed. A man in high office becomes servile and flatterer to his boss and does not say a single word against the flaws in policies, shortcomings in his institute and demands of his workers to his boss, despite the fact that his subordinates suffer terribly under the stress of full labor and less earning. A common person is also a slave to society. He has to do what the society demands from him. He is crushed under the weight of customs, traditions and social and moral norms.
But on one hand if such people are making progress, on the other hand they are sacrificing their desires, emotions and duties. The student is sacrificing his study for girls and fashion, the teacher his genius for the purpose of high estimation in the eyes of his colleagues, the man in high office slays the expectations of his workers for the sake of giving false satisfaction to his boss and a common man strangles his desires to get fake happiness and pleasure which he receives of his society.
So in reality we are not living our own lives. Our lives are controlled by someone else. We are like robots and puppets. We are not natural, we are artificial.
But why do we do this? Why do we pretend what we are not? Just to get false contentment of heart or peace of mind? The answer to these questions is that we are deceiving ourselves in the most ruthless way. We take pleasure in doing so. Every person in this world is different from every other person. They have something definitely in common among them owing to the principles of morality and virtue, customs and traditions and rules and regulations. But as regards nature, everyone has grave differences. So if a person is sacrificing a part of his nature, he is violating his own nature. It is a universally acknowledged truth that those who act against nature, they are punished by nature. So as a result, every person whether he is a student or a teacher, man of a high rank or just a common person, will be punished by his own nature. This punishment will be either in the form of mental agony of that person or he himself will become revengeful. In this connection first, the student will either destroy himself by becoming a drug addict or will try to harm his cla** fellows. Females suffer the worst. They become easy prey for inferiority complex, for not being beautiful, despite their efforts to be regarded as beautiful and be praised. The teacher, after not getting enough praise from his colleagues, would not come up to his best level and end up leaving his post or planning plots to disgrace his other colleagues. The man at high position would be at war with himself and repent throughout his life for not doing anything for the betterment of his workers. The common man, for not receiving positive response from society, will become a nuisance to society or a worthless burden on this earth.
Thus there is a strong need of originality among us. We must do what we want to do. To live an artificial life, in an artificial manner, for the temporary satisfaction of our desires is the worst form of self-deception. We have throbbing hearts with pa**ions, emotions and desires and we will satisfy them as we naturally wish.
Qaiser Ali Khan Nov. 2008