It's interesting to see how the concept of "I" and "mine" is so ingrained in our psyche. Do we love anybody? We say that we love our family members. Do we really? When we interact with the children, we find that many of them are quite stressed due to the fear of failing to meet their parents' expectations. Will any loving person have expectations? If parents expect their children to achieve something and become sad when they are unable to achieve it, where is the love? Aren't children just tools to get those trophies?
Wife feels that husband should get dressed well when they go to some party so that the "crowd" may appreciate her husband, and she feels good to have a "trophy husband". The husband invites guests to his home, and the wife cooks delicious food, and the guests appreciate it. Husband feels happy about having a "trophy wife". Children obey the dictates of their parents, and the parents praise everywhere that their children are "good children". Parents get a trophy for having brought up the children to be fully obedient.
Do we call this love? Can we just ask a simple question from ourselves? What is at the center of this relationship? Isn't it self-interest at the center of the relationship? Unless we come out of that sense of "self," how can we prioritize others? Can we ever put our child, wife, husband, parents, or any other person whom we claim to love above "ourselves"? The real test lies when there is a conflict of interest. When there is no scope for being goody-goody. What if the mother wants a daughter-in-law desperately, and the son does not want to marry? Can the mother put the child first and take a second seat? What if the wife does not want to cook food and wants to join the office? Will the husband prioritize the wishes of the wife or the appreciation of the guests? What if the husband is not interested in joining that social gathering? Will the wife prioritize the wishes of the husband or social validation?
There is a lot of "silent violence" that goes unnoticed. People try to control in the name of love. It is also equally true that people allow themselves to be controlled because they also get something in return. The same "sense of separation" that creates an island to keep some near and dear at that island and cuts off from the rest of the world, separates the self from even these near and dear people when there is a conflict. That's why we see honor killings by parents. That's why we see that the beautiful relationship of marriage gets converted into a silent suffering. "Sense of separation" is like a genie that is out of the bottle and needs something or the other to separate, and the moment it does not have something to separate, it will separate our near and dear people. On the other hand, if we examine that "sense of separation," we find it so baseless. We are all just like laptops of the same brand, having almost the same features. It is the stored data that gives us a distinct identity. The moment we connect to the internet, we realize that the stored data is so little compared to the data available on the internet. Our "uniqueness" seems to lose any relevance. The moot question is: "Is that unique identity so important to us that we decide to stay disconnected from the universe?". That seems quite foolish. But the most stupid things in this world become the norm because we refuse to examine them.
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