We drift in an ocean of humanity, each wave of society shaping us, moulding us, pushing us toward shores of conformity. Like water flowing through our fingers, we try to grasp what makes us who we are, even as the currents of modern life threaten to wash away our authentic selves. Some of us float contentedly on the surface, while others dive deep, searching for firmer ground beneath the shifting sands of social expectation. In this vast sea of human experience, we’re all searching for our own way to swim, even as the tides of culture and convention pull us toward predetermined shores. Yet beneath these churning waters lies an ancient wisdom—a truth about who we really are, waiting to be rediscovered.

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The Tides of Expectation

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. — > Jim Morrison

The woman tells her child, “Yes, you can do it darling.” You are only a darling when you are going after what you desire—or what they desire for you. You are only a darling when you are fulfilling their deeply held expectations. Maybe you feel powerless or you feel like you can’t achieve something, maybe that you don’t want to do something? That’s when doubt arises and our parents cannot handle that doubt for they rarely developed that capacity in themselves. In some cases like these, they withdrew their love and we were left to fend for ourselves.

We all are subject to a degree of perfectionism in different aspects of our childhood. Our withdrawals of love make us more intent on trying to recapture that love through another means. To try and do what must be done or to try and undo what was done. We try and we try, something comes up but it’s never enough. So the unending conflict goes on. But some of us are the unfortunate (or fortunate) ones, who find ourselves having gone as far as we can to try and win back their love and then arriving at the beautiful, yet painful acknowledgement that there is no more love to get. This is all there is. And then we cry, we grieve in silence, we self-harm because, in the end, it still isn’t enough. This realisation often comes too late in life and the time and reflection required for re-orientation are not given to everyone and not taught to everyone.

There is something in us that tires of a society that doesn’t value the soul, doesn’t respect the spirit of being. We are not tired of our ceaseless activity but of our lack of an inner connection to this maddening outer world. Such is our plight that we cannot handle existential dread anymore, for it is too deep, too heavy and too vast. We distract and drug ourselves into pleasure and in our numbness slowly kill ourselves through our own means before society can erode our will. But we are mistaken. How can society kill the very thing it is? How can it erode the life force that beats our hearts and keeps us breathing?

Instead of listening to the fire within us, we try to take control of it and use it for some ‘goal’. In our lust for goals we seek endlessly to be satisfied by something, anything. In our lust for power we seek to control the life within someone else, employing them toward our ends. Don’t we see there is no end?

We will keep desiring things and making use of people. There is nothing that will stop us until we can figure out essentially why we keep using our fire for heating warm air—which is to say why do we keep making life better when it is already good? Why do we need more things, more money, more experiences when there’s already enough? There’s something in the malady of being a human being that if left unchecked, regresses to a basic loop of desire-satisfaction.

We are silly. We are mad. Only when we can realise this will we open up to the beauty of life and what it provides for us. Maybe then we can be in a place to respect it, honour it and take care of it.

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Waves of Cultural Trauma

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I look around me only to see the strange constellations of society functioning. They seem to go on and on taking decisions and choices that are alien to me. I am alien to them. I feel like a stranger here, with a certain degree of thinking capacity and an outlook that’s unique to me. That’s why they look afraid when I talk to them, what I say they cannot accept. For if they did accept it, they would think differently from the way they’ve thought, differently from how others think. It makes me think about what society had been and what it is—how it has become like this. There must have been so many things that have happened throughout the ages, all leading to this.

This detachment manifests differently across cultures and continents, each society carrying its own unique wounds while sharing in the universal human struggle for authenticity. The patterns of trauma and transformation weave through our collective story, coming from a shared human experience that transcends geographical boundaries.

The generations in the East carry some trauma of their colonial past, commonly termed as a ‘colonial hangover’. They idealise the West and try to imitate its ways of life while so easily forgetting their own. They lose themselves in vain ambition that only serves to sever the bonds that made their societies healthy, tight-knit and resilient. Blinded by the glitter of Western materialism, they develop a disdain for their own cultural roots.

In contrast, the generations born in the West carry not only colonial trauma but also the scars from the World Wars—from the way it was back then and the way society had to shift to recover from the war. They are estranged to themselves, drifting in a sea of meaningless activities. Despite their searching, they do not find peace; they still have the fighting instinct and a heightened sense of ego that defined their ancestors and which, to this day, prevails over their desire for a grounded being. They want things so bad that they are prepared to deprive others in the never-ending battle for status and resources. But this is not unique to the west. Everyone would do that, even I would.

So, what makes me unique then? Nothing really. It doesn’t matter how I think or what I believe about anyone, no one will change. They will grow and evolve in their own way—as will I. East or West, the trauma manifests differently but the root cause is the same: a disconnection from one’s authentic self, from the deeper human values that give life meaning beyond what society tells us we should be.

Finding a Harbor in the Storm

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus

To break away from the societal conditioning that lives within us requires a power we have to find within ourselves. There is no other way. No one will give you that power, nor that insight to proceed into a world you have not been told about. Then, what do we do?

Society has told us what to be, who to be and how to be. The best way out of this (and I think the quickest and most effective) is to assess each action we do, not by overthinking but, by pausing our habitual response and finding a way into spontaneous action. To just act without thinking and then observe where it comes from. We learn a lot about ourselves this way. Two kinds of actions come out from spontaneous action—the first is a deeply conditioned response that can be reflected upon. The second, more importantly, is an instinctual response which is the natural way of acting our entire being wishes for: a pathway to our authentic selves.

Amidst these societal complexities, I find myself unsure of where I’m from, but longing to go back there. I miss my land, its dust and dirt. The melange of sweat and tears that make this country a home. Something tribal, native and indigenous lives in us all. What a strange yet beautiful mixture. Sometimes it feels like modernity is a trend.

What does one do then? First, we could rid ourselves of this clamping feeling. It is time for healthier patterns and getting rid of the diseased ones but this is harder than it seems and it takes a long time. The things that keep us trapped are, in a way, loose desires grounded in a past that no longer exists. There are, of course, some biological desires within us that are just part of the way a human being exists in this world. The same can be said for psychological desires. The rest, however, is all fluff—subject to change at a moment’s notice, ready to dissolve in the next cultural shift. We must not attach ourselves to trends but rather try to be grounded in that which is perennial.

The next question to be faced in society is how does one make it here in a way that doesn’t interfere with their soul. This is tricky to answer for everyone. In my personal situation I had been getting clear hints. I was told to go back to my homeland, and to be guided once again into the path set by my ancestors, by the fabric of my soul—should it by chance have a fabric made of universal dust. Is a job right for me even if it provides me with security? In the end that’s the game. For society says: “Secure finances and a role in society, no matter how banal. Do not chase something that fulfils your soul’s ache for adventure. Do not struggle in chasing that dream or fantasy and making it reality.” There is something about society and these jobs dripping with status and security that makes the light in one’s eyes fade.

As Krishnamurti put it, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Yet this is what we are encouraged to aspire to.

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No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful. — Ernest Hemingway

As In youth, we possess a fiery vitality, an untempered wisdom that sees through the illusions of society. With each compromise, each surrender to security over soul, that light dims. When I look at people who have been worn down by years in this system, they have a certain sense of resignation from all life. They are selfish, cold and calculating not to mention frustrated and brittle. They speak little about anything other than their business and are caught in the work-pleasure cycle. For them when it is not about security, it is about power or status. Gaining power over their surroundings through influence and status, financial prowess and displays of wealth (something which is less in Europe). However, the symbols of power can be as small as glitter on white shoes or a ring on one’s finger and it can be as grand as the latest car that only those with vital financial assets can afford.

These displays and power games are the end of the road, for there is little more a superficial life can offer. Those that persist in this game go around in circles, seeking to maintain their power and status until their demise. I rarely see examples of people who share the little power they have with others, the little wealth they have with others. A benevolent authority is rare and it is well known that to keep power, one must deprive others of power.

There are also those who give up the game. Once in retirement they know their life now is short-lived, inconsequential and arranged in a way to provide maximum comfort—a luxurious state of decay. It reminds me of the story of signing of a deal with the devil where there’s a clause in the contract that ‘the signer will forget this deal was ever signed’. Thus they have bought into comfort and security without being aware of what they’ve sold in exchange.

I shudder to think what would have happened if that were me. I would have adapted to the ways of killing the instinct and thus become a mass person. I would have been a willing oppressor of other people while being oppressed by the demands of the ‘Super Ego’ or ‘The big Other’—reminiscent of Freud’s fascinating idea that aggression not allowed outwards turns inwards and seems to come from the super-ego. This idea, I feel, is better elucidated by Jung on the idea of the shadow and the shadow animus or anima. (We crave for myth, for philosophy, for alchemy) Jung’s ideas on the shadow help explain the self-inflicted aggression one can observe in Europeans. This aggression comes to inflict the individual with suppression mechanisms through the other-worldly larger authority—another form of social conformity.

This internal struggle reflects a broader collective pattern, where the shadow—those aspects of ourselves we refuse to acknowledge—doesn’t disappear but rather transforms into increasingly subtle forms of social control. As Jung observed, what we resist not only persists but grows stronger in the darkness of our denial.

This seems to be the fate of many cultures who are not able to make sense of their own aggression and end up channelling it either onto themselves individually or collectively. This perfectionism manifests in endless protests, bureaucracy and desperate attempts to hold power. Protest culture is a clear example of this, which makes me think—when will they ever stop? Some of the most affluent, prolific and well-organised societies have the most protests because people think it can be better. They are somehow bound by their perfectionism in trying to make waves where no waves need be made. Has the time come that the liberties offered to a European are taken for granted? Another example when enough is not enough? Could this be that their time in the global spotlight is coming to an end? Encased in a quagmire of bureaucracy and self-protective structures, they want to desperately keep the power that is already leaking out of their hands.

But Europe is not unique in this, it serves merely an example that the author of this essay is familiar with. This civilization, like all others, is subject to inevitable tides of change. It is another illustration that this is how the rigmarole of societies go. They rise and they fall only to rise again and repeat the cycle. There is no salvation for the collective, only the individual. For the allegiances of the individual lie where they can get food, shelter and clothing. The basic things are what matter in the end and the fundamentals have always been more important than the fluff. The idea of material standards of living, eradication of poverty and having a life worth remembering is all folly and remnants of a civilization now in its late stage of decay.

Amidst the crumbling of civilizations, the one thing that endures in the individual is the soul. By cultivating that inner fire, that connection to something deeper, something greater than the recommendations of society, we gain the power to ride the waves of change. In the end, it matters not whether East or West, old or young, rich or poor—what matters is whether we have the courage to seek our own truth.

There will be a time when a great tsunami (metaphorically) comes to sweep away the sandcastles of our civilizations. In that great reckoning, we will be left with a gaping hole where our misdirected efforts once stood. In the ensuing chaos, only those who have cultivated an inner compass will find their way. Just as parental love cannot stop the doubts and strivings of a child, no society can hold back the winds of transformation. This symbolic (or actual) representation of the turning of the tide is a fresh wave of wind in a new kind of sea that we, as humanity, are sailing into. Will we make it? We will have to wait and sea but our survival depends not on our ability to maintain the old structures, but on our courage to imagine and create new ways of being human together.