At this point in time, I have stopped believing in rules and regulations.
This is not a statement that I make in a sense of rebellion or a streak of disobedience or any other adjective of a combative, revolting nature. I make this statement because societies and communities have always been in flux for thousands of thousands of years; pointedly since, when we, Homo Sapiens eliminated and in some cases interbred with the Neanderthals, our closest human cousins, all the way till massive changes in society wrought upon by the agricultural revolution to the formation of city-states and empires to the modern nations of today. For people of a cosmopolitan bent, there are no ideologies of being loyal to one nation any more; rather the instinct is towards universal humanism. This is not to profess as if certain ideologies are right or wrong, but rather to state the fact that there is plenty of room for all communities and faiths. Embracing differing opinions sometimes borders towards violence and conflicts, however the rewards for doing so are greater than what immediately meets the eye. It is prudent to reason that, thinking beyond our evolutionary instincts of tribalism would do us a lot of good.
For the longest time he could remember, the USA had been the most dominant nation in the world since the end of the second world war. Tt was primed up to be a ‘land of opportunity’ and a great share of the world’s individuals chose to move there to build their fortunes from scratch, in pursuit of exercising their fullest potential. And what exactly is an individual’s fullest potential one may ask? He had often thought about this question and now all he could think about were concepts like the ‘flow state’ or a sort of ‘tingling sensation’ inside the brain when he would sit down to write, or definitely the fact that anything we do, had to be sensed and captured in terms of biochemistry. Therefore, as per this definition, ‘unlocking’ one’s fullest potential would entail an individual to access mental consciousness states that weren’t usually possible in ‘normal’ times. Therefore, it meant that, every day, as fast as possible, one needed to start flowing, that is to speak, get so immersed into ‘something’ so as to push that particular ‘something’ to its limits, to one’s own mental limits and beyond, to eventually arrive at an original creation and a new perspective of looking at that ‘something’.
As far as he could see, there were physical limits to the amount of energy humans were currently pumping out of the earth’s reservoirs in the form of crude oil and metals; not because of their limited reserves so to speak, but rather because of the unintended consequences of climate change and global warming, putting our sources of food and drinking water at a risk. Food and drinking water surpluses were the bed rock atop which modern civilization was based on, yet wherever he looked, especially in his social circle, such a thought seemed to have escaped the attention of many; if they were thinking about the fragile nature of modern supply chains, they certainly were not speaking about it, though he couldn’t blame them. The rigours of survival for monthly wages and expending mind space towards investing that money into worthwhile things was an effort that took the most time of the day for any rational human being. Yet, time and the way one uses time is the only differentiator between one human being and the other, if we could discount socio-economic circumstances out of the picture for now, since the family and environment into which we’re born into is not in our control.
There was a lot to say. There is a lot of time.
The weekend parties were a many. He wished he were at one. Yet, he didn’t miss any of it. He did know that he should network more often and try to understand people more, what drove them to wake up everyday, their passions, their ability to think original stuff and so on. He would definitely drink and blaze up for originality everyday. As per him, being original meant that every sentence one uttered or thought could be justified to a child and opined upon based on open, constructive feedback. The modern world of today, stood on the shoulders of the giants of past. The giants of today were a respected lot, yet how often or how long can one’s admiration be based on exposure to the careful craft of public relations? He whispered a heartfelt thanks to the unsung thinkers of eras gone by and wished to emulate them.
Marijuana Maharaj 