by Manjit Handa
Nietzsche said that there are no ‘facts’, only ‘interpretations’. The Society at large is basically a sum total of these interpretations based on human experience. Everybody is looking at something from where he/she is stationed. Just like the blind men who interpreted the elephant in what part each was clinging.
Interpretations differ not only amongst eras and times in history but also at each moment at the same place and situation. This is a certain profession suitable for you, that is not. This is the code of conduct at a gathering, not that one. These are the preferable clothes to that. This religious path is better than that. There is a huge propaganda going on. Even artistic representations of the world are historical phenomena responding and changing in complex relationship with the wider human world.
The big question is how are you or me going to interpret it all? What am I going to do with my life? Am I going to be swayed by what he said, or she or some celebrity? Most of us do that. Whether we intend or mean to do it that way or not. Most of us have a role model, an icon whom we not only imitate unconsciously but religiously live our life along the same pattern even sometimes wishfully expecting the circumstances to turn out along the icon’s lines. Or else there is a conditioning from parents and peer group who expect you to be a certain person. And all our life we chase that person that others expect us to be. The way they interpret us. And that is where we make a huge gaffe.
What we have to look for, is not the other’s interpretation of us but our own interpretation of ourselves. To take the path that might have your prints for the first time, but the one which your ‘heart wanted to take’. To listen to your own voice and shut all the others outside, which is mere noise. To conquer the fear of defeat which would have come in the other path likewise. So what are you waiting for? Follow that voice, that calling that beckons you and make every moment worthy of your breath. So finally you know why exactly you are living.
Be an icon in your own eyes!
With Love,
Manjit
