If one has been following my blog, one would have seen how I’m strongly opinionated, and my views run at a tangent to conventionally-held ideas about the right and the wrong, the acceptable and the unacceptable. And while the content of my views might not be acceptable according to the society’s definition of it, I don’t shy away from putting them out there, without giving a thought to if they’d ‘offend’ anyone. We cannot, anyways, in today’s day, go 10 miles and speak a 100 words without having the fear of offending someone or their dog.
We have grown so soft as a people. Timid, large numbers of us don’t speak out even when faced with subjugation, be it cases of domestic violence, bullshit at work, parental excesses, or being bullied. (Using the term ‘Sir’ is one of the ways in which this subjugation manifests itself, I did a post on this here, in case you want to read it).
Moulded by society and the environment around them, forgetting who they really are (‘Who am I’, is a matter of discussion that I might take up separately, in a more spiritually-inclined post), people continue to exist, and not live. The lives they lead, are others’, not their own.
People’s thoughts and opinions are not their opinions, but those of others. This is because our education systems, our models of ‘appropriate’ behaviour, and our models of the upbringing of children stifle free thought. Not only do people not speak out their thoughts for fear of either hurting someone’s sensibilities, or facing retaliation for having original views; but they have forgotten even to think for themselves. Very rarely do we see original thought. Mine, is a dying breed. We are an endangered species. We need to be conserved.
Contrary to the belief that sharing of views that might offend someone is abhorrent; it actually is the subjugation of free human thought that is the saddest and the most repugnant, and detestable feature of human existence. And by expression of free thought, I do not in any way mean words or actions that might hurt anyone physically, emotionally, or psychologically. Nor am I supporting the likes of the left liberals who shout anti-national slogans and seek to divide the society; those who, in the garb of free speech, dole out hateful or insinuating speech.
No, I’m not advocating that. All I’m saying is, we need to go back to the times when we were not so soft as a race so as to get offended at the slightest infringement. And encourage original thought and fearless voicing of opinions. True freedom lies in this. Being free without fear.
