Archive for October 23rd, 2007
Boundaries of thought
Have you ever noticed that always it is those who choose the middle path are the ones confined to the sideline? Those at the envelope of a thought, an idea or belief don’t bother about restraint. Even questions of morality fade away into the background for them; they have greater pleasures or bigger problems to live with. Let me explain. To put my point in a better perspective (at the risk of being called a generalist) let me take an example. Smoking among womenfolk is more prevalent in lower and upper strata of society. When I ask you to picturize a smoking woman in India, you probably visualize either a poor woman clad in an unclean crumpled sari with a ‘beedi’ in her hand squatting near the ‘Chai’ shop round the corner, or a modern ‘liberated’ and sophisticated lady with a cigarette in her hand. Why is it not so common among the middle class? I took smoking just as an example that came easily to my mind. The same logic can be extended to other spheres of our lives.
To me it seems that the sooner you take a stand, the more freedom and leeway you enjoy; there is no dilly-dallying or emotional tussle. You make a choice knowing very well the consequences and hold no qualms in accepting them. Let’s take another example. An example of three college students in a class – one who is a topper in the course; the second, who has little inclination for studies and will surely drop out in favour of the business he wants to start and the third student who isn’t really inclined towards what is taught in the class, yet goes through the ordeal of sitting through quietly and finishing the course. Whom do you think has a higher probability of making good in life? Students A and B are at what I would like to call as the ‘envelope’ of the decision spectrum. Student C is in the middle. Clearly, students A and B are positioned better than C in terms of their convictions, hence in turn for bigger gains or bigger losses. They are headed for greater pleasures or bigger problems, it could go either way. On the other hand student C is perhaps headed towards mediocrity.
Well, it seems to me that it does pay to take a stand at the earliest.
