Ambition Ambivalencies & Ambiguity

Today the network is down and hence I cannot do anything else but listen to some songs and talk to people and, ah, yea and think. So it’s better to think and pen down something rather than think and do nothing.

I don’t know why I decide to write on ambition, it’s picked by an absolutely random spike of thought. And perhaps, because I feel confused about the whole scenario of ambition and achievements and successes and failures and the world surrounding it. It goes back to our school days (considering our good old Indian scenario); where we were told and preached to perform the obvious compulsions to our possible bests, and the only yardstick was academics (unfortunately, though) and hence there were Ramas, Ravanas and Hanumanas according to the reflections of their report cards. I still feel this could have been better; it’s still not that bad anyways. But I think that compulsive force drives us to places we are forced to realize are the places we want to be, and the sad thing is that this becomes a way we live and we continue flowing with the rivers all the time.

Yes, the domination of herd becomes distinctly visible here. At least to my software engineer friends it should. The path has been more or less same for all of us. An above average score in secondary examinations mixed with the social notion of science as the life gate for the high scorer student takes you to science field. And in spite of the huge ocean of opportunities, we filter out engineering and medical and decide to increment the unimaginable container of proficient and hollow and pretending and amazing and all sorts of ‘technical experts’ by one. Parents happy, the guy looks ‘settled’, for at least next few years no more brainstorming of ‘what do I do with my life?’

So, we enter this herd container, next arrives the feeling of greed and incompleteness, now the guy wants more, what do I do now! A master’s degree, hmm yea looks like a good option! Done with technical stuff, lets try management. Or the great mentos minds will go and give a GRE, (arrre yaar, why waste all the knowledge that we have gained without doing an MS? from a cool university!)

So, we end up getting a big fat job, everything is fine, the career is made, life mystery resolved, life is beautiful! Convince your girl friend’s dad, get married! Just give your parents a hint your want to tie, they will get your married (I don’t understand, why getting your first son working is such a big dream). Have kids, join a gym and try to lose fat, get a spacious car, get appraised, and get screwed for getting appraised! You are in thirties and it’s still a long way left.

It doesn’t impress me, it never did, and it never shall (hopefully!). We form the herd, run with it, and we never find time to sit back and realize that it’s not always a race that we have to win. We never know what we want and what we need!

When I compare myself to peers, I feel contented, desires lacking and ambitions unclear! But may be it’s just at the surface as it looks like, perhaps it’s a deception, a blind walk along the herd. I console myself by telling that hopefully I think beyond the herd and will do something that everyone doesn’t, but the mere fact that I think this and never implements it puts me at the centre of that huge mediocre crowd trying to make a point. But yea, there is one thing that makes some of us different, the realization of the fact that what difference would it make when we get out of this herd! We become part of another herd. Existence isn’t as simple as mathematics, or for the matter of fact, not even as simple as astro-physics. Its complex, at least for me! Think.

 Postsecret