We often see movies where the hero of the movie is riding a horse in the most wonderful manner and when we visit a a film city, we realize that the hero was never riding the horse and rather that was just a toy horse fitted to a vehicle and the hero was just acting riding on the horse. We too try to photoshop the reality when we take a snap and crop the snap to narrow down the frame so that what lies outside the frame is not visible. We try to present the best version of ourselves. But the truth remains that reality does not change with photoshopping and it remains the same.
We try to photoshop the reality in real life as well. We try to ignore the larger frame and make decisions in the narrow frame of life. All of us know that old age is a reality and everybody who survives will become old. Yet, we try to look young by coloring our hair, going to the salon to get different treatments done, and applying different beauty products. We crop the reality to a narrow frame that we like. Since many people in society are busy photoshopping reality, they scratch each other's backs. Appreciate each other for good looks. All of them pretend to be oblivious to the reality. The moment somebody shows them their real face, that person becomes their biggest enemy.
These photoshopped beautiful pictures of life are quite dangerous. The worst part is that kids at a very young age are getting exposed to these in an uncontrolled manner. They are watching social media success stories to get the impression that being a YouTuber is far easier than studying hard at school. People want their followers on social media because that gives them advertisement revenue. In order to attract followers and likes, people are going to any extent. It's very easy to tell lies on social media and crop the reality to show what we want to show. Unfortunately, leaving aside the young kids, even the adults get trapped therein. In fact, one of the biggest challenges that doctors are facing nowadays is to cleanse the minds of their patients contaminated by social media.
A larger frame of life is nobody's area of interest. That is probably the reason why mental disorders, cases of suicides, bullying, and aggression are on the rise. Earlier, young kids were exposed to the larger picture of life with the help of the stories of Ramayana, Mahabharata, Purana, and Panchtantra. Nowadays Chota Bheem can solve all the problems of life by eating just one Laddoo. If the larger purpose of life is not understood, naturally the kids will be attracted to instant gratification. The ones who get what they desire will feel entitled to that and will become arrogant and the ones who are not able to manage that instant gratification will be full of inferiority complex and jealousy. People will always be confused in making decisions and choosing among the alternatives since they are not aware of the bigger purpose of life.
I feel that until the parents themselves stop photoshopping the reality, kids will naturally copy the same. If parents tell their kids that if they do not get admission to IIT or AIIMS, that is the end of the world, then naturally they are photoshopping the reality for their kids and paving the way for their depression in the future. A limited and narrow mind can not show the wider reality to others. If the parents themselves do not invest their time and energy to understand the larger frame of life, how can they educate their kids about the same? Unfortunately, in today's world, we are so busy watching movies, traveling to tourist destinations, having lunches and dinners in restaurants, enjoying parties and shopping in the malls that there is no time to contemplate the meaning of life. Most parents believe that it is a post-retirement job. Unfortunately, by the time we retire, kids will become adults and carry the same photoshopped frame of life that we have. They will undergo the same suffering in life that we have undergone.
Dhritrastra photoshopped his frame of reality to just see the unfair treatment given to him by society, and somehow this photoshopped reality got passed on to Duryodhana and resulted in the battle of Kurukshetra. Unfortunately, we are also behaving like Dhritrastra. We are fearful and insecure due to our adamency not to look at the larger picture of life. Somehow during parenting, we end up passing our fears and insecurities to our kids knowingly as well as unknowingly. We are afraid of failure and pass on the same to our kids. We are afraid of the loss of what we have and pass on the same to our kids. As parents, the least we can do is to explore the larger frame of life ourselves so that at least our kids see us doing that and get an alternate perspective. If they see us reading books written by enlightened brains, the existence of such books gets enrolled in their mind and whenever they pass through periods of conflict, naturally they will get attracted to these books. Similarly, we may enroll them to be possibilities by having discussions on life, philosophy, and the discoveries of science and limitations thereof. We need to talk to them about relationships, money, powers, knowledge, and the purpose of life. Who knows in the process, parents get to discover more than the kids😃
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