Is it good or bad?
Limitations. Barriers. Obstacles. The inevitable products
when one allows one self to become overwhelmed by the society and its
regulations. Yes, there are laws to abide and rules to follow. A society will
cease to exist when its members become disobedient of the laws and rules.
However, the question that I raise is solely concerned with the existing norms.
What are norms? The conventions those are liable to social
pressure in order to increase chances of conformity. Very few amongst us are
able to see through this social pressure and answer the varied question of
whether it is good or bad. The interesting phenomena about good and bad is that
it has no one, reliable answer. The one thing which separates evil from
goodness is the outcome we consider of the actions we take. Productivity and
efficiency makes it good while hatred and lust makes it bad. Simple?
Rebelling against a norm we have little faith in is
considerably close to igniting a revolution. We become isolated by those close
to us as our actions are disregarded by others. Not many of us understand that
our thoughts and beliefs cannot be confined within a cage. Our faith defines
our thoughts and if one has lost any peculiar amount of faith in the existing
norms then it leaves the person with two choices: Either they show no courage
to stand up against the social pressure and accept the norms as part of their
life which cannot be altered or they rebel and ignore the social pressure and
define their own future rather than relying on something they no longer have
faith in. Believe it or not, these latter people are the ones immortalized in
history no matter how many stones were thrown at them during their lifetime.
Many of us talk about leaving a mark in the world. Most of
us are afraid of oblivion. But all of us desire greatness in one way or
another. In our early years, we believe success and virtue waits at our
doorsteps. However, after stepping out of those naïve shoes and finding
ourselves surrounded in the midst of complexities, we go back to our little
cage with the belief that we are not destined to something great and can never
rise above the average. We all strike and we all fail. Some of us who fail
start pitying their own selves while a few strike harder the next time. It is a
battle against the existing norms and the one who strikes the most times while
others begin to settle down is the one to inculcate change.
It is not a rivalry between good and bad. It is rather about
what the one who strikes the hardest sees as productive, and this is what the
entire society eventually comes to accept. That person then rises to his
greatness. Social pressure and the existing norms do not have the power to
define our future but without courage and determination – they certainly do.
