There was a time when few among our friends or relatives used to bring our home their friend, who is into some expectation of selling some item. People used to call it by the name ‘Network marketing’. The occupation of that other person was to persuade us into purchasing the futile bundle of items or scheme he used to bring along.
It was not sure if our relative/friend felt guilty for bringing him. It was also possible that he himself was under the delusion of his friend’s scheme. But almost every single time, none of them were able to pass the delusion to us. We had to buy from a few, out of generosity, provided that the things are modest. Afterward, we made a point to keep away from that relative who brought that awkwardness to us.
Fast-forward to 30 years, this network marketing culture still exists. I have also lost a few friends who tried to trap me into so called ‘seminars’. Unlike our parents, our generation is not adequately polite to engage these advertisers out of liberality.
Indian Baby boomer generation is still considerably more liberal than us. Indeed, even in the wake of realizing that the other individual is doing a misleading promotion, they fail to refuse the offer for the fear of souring relationships. There are plenty of scammers already taking advantage of this and losing value among their friends and relatives.
Baby Boomers are the generation of humans born between 1946 and 1964. This term has come from the western countries where Child birth rate expanded altogether, principally due to post world war 2 conditions. Not sure if this same name and reason can be applied to the generation born in India during the same period. But it is noticeable that most of our parents do belong to this generation. Our parents in India, of this age, have seen perfect and striking range of changes in the course of their life.
Circumstances
They were born during the time when the country was just learning to take toddler steps. There was confusion, chaos in admiration and corruption and hence the poverty was inevitable among most of the families. We have all heard of the success stories of our parents who not only endured the terrible times but also thrived with it. They have been a part of a completely different education system which was not of much money oriented. Most of them didn’t have much fortune to spend on education. Going to school itself was a burden on their family, as they would lose an earning hand.
Technology revolution
There were hardly any good means of communication. Be it by road or telephone or electronic media. Their world was so small. Then the slow revolution happened. Trees were cut to make an ever-increasing need of houses for the growing population. Houses turned from paddy grass roofed to tile roofed to concrete roof. Communicating with the Letters faded with the arrival of landline phone, and then cell phones Entertainment became a major part of their life with the arrival of Radios, which were soon replaced by Monochrome TVs and then color TV to wall sized flat LCD HD TV. Commuting got easier with bicycle, faster with Motorbike and luxurious with cars
Race lost
Many were able to keep up with the changing times pace. Very few were left behind. It is when the entire world began to rely upon computerized devices and tools for everything, this age nearly lost the race. Apparently, they became too tired y the race to keep up with the constantly changing, evolving world. At this time, out of frustration, they started to fantasize about the early phase of this change.
The coping mechanism
They started comparing the lifestyle between generations and started exaggerating the ‘tougher times’ they faced in their more youthful days.
They failed to remember that the change happened constantly and not dramatically. Human emotion was always the combination of blissful and miserable state. He always compared self with the people around. Time to time there were different levels to compare with. There were always a set of individuals underneath our benchmark of happiness by comparing with whom we felt happy and the set of people over our level to whom we desired to be.
Life has always balanced, the happiness and satisfaction by constantly adjusting between these two levels.
Have you ever paid a close attention to the ad billboard, or brochure of any housing projects?
They are almost sure to have a non-native, pale skinned model exercising in a gym. Or a happy white family with blond haired kids playing around. Or a healthy elderly couples (non-local) walking in the exotic mini park within the premise.
I have hardly seen any middle class, dark-colored humans, in the advertisements of these concepts yet.
What is it that these builders and promoters are trying to convey here?
Are they exploiting the upper middle class mindset of society, which has assumed the superiority of the western lifestyle on self? By having western essence in the advertisements, is promoter trying to deliver the lie of comfort and delight to the deluded individual?
Hundreds of projects around Bengaluru are in shambled state within 10 years of the erection. They stand, as the sheer evidence, for the false promises imposed on the fantasy of ownership.
Recently, when we were strolling around the streets of BTM Layout, we spotted a dog pooping in the middle of the road. The owner of the dog picked up the poop and immediately dumped it inside a plastic bag which he had carried along. Having witnessed too much of weirdness in this era of social media influenced society, we were wondering if any new trend has started online! Within a minute, we spotted the above board. Felt relieved, realizing that the world has not gone completely insane yet. But are we in the beginning of it?
Clearly, the above rule applies only to the house dogs. Street dogs give a damn about this dog shit.
As a part of cultured and educated society, we too have bound ourselves into set of rules and regulations, which applies only to the domesticated humans.
Instructions are everywhere. Follow traffic rules, wear masks/ helmet/seatbelts, pay taxes, don’t litter the place, No parking, No honking, Go slow, No billboards etc.
Those who are concerned will follow without imposition, and those who are not will not abide by them genuinely anyway.
What if you had authority to put your own sign boards over the places, what would you have written?
Found above interesting quote from one of the blog posts of famous author Mark manson.
Since the revolution of social media, it has become a trend among all generations to mandatorily have fun or at least express that they are having fun. People of our age have suddenly become wanderlusts. WhatsApp has brought out many naive singers and dancers out of 60+aged parents. Dancing and performance at a family event has become a ritual.
Doesn’t matter if they know how to dance, you shouldn’t judge them because they are having ‘fun’. They are ‘living their life to the fullest’. If you are shy and introvert, you are ‘missing’ too much of life.
It is sad how measures of ‘having fun’ is being defined by social networking and agenda driven, commercial embedded cheap media contents.
Sitting on a rock bench, and quietly observe the leaves rustling, listening to a random tune from a bird hidden inside some invisible nest, calmly hearing all the chaos out there in the world can also be fun. Spending the whole day doing nothing but lying on a couch, reading a few pages of a book, can also be fun in its own way.
Things we do on any typical day need not be labelled as ‘fun’ ‘boring’ ‘mundane’. They are just the way they are.
One of the most familiar practice of our modern American democratic life is the way we load our children with toys, A modern house where there several children is a perfect chaos of toys, from picture books of every description to all types and sizes of dolls in all stages of decompostion, and all manner of mechanical devices And still they come, new and ingenous contrivances to catch and’ hold the jaded attention of our offspring and make them forget for a momemnt the tedium of life. It is the crime of the age; it is a sin against our children. It corrupts their simplicity, it stimulates their destructiveness; it sates and blunts their curiosity and hastens the time of their general discontent with life. ‘We try at the outset to destroy their interest in the plain wholesome things of life by the multitude of strange and startling devices we shower upgn them. We would have them believe that the world is one great toy shop, made simply for their amusement, We create a false taste, a craving for ceaseless novelty, everything new every day, every hour. The last surprise only sharpens their appetite for a greater, till they go from blond dolls to brunette dolls, and from jumping jack to jumping jack with utter weariness and disculet. It is like feeding a child only condiments and sweetmeats, A sane and killed.’We give them milk to drink, bread to eat. Why not provide as few and as common things for their amusement? Why sophisticate them? Why foster a craving for novelty and variety that life cannot satisfy? By and by they will cry for the moon and the stars. ‘What are we going to do then? ‘Tis a pity the whole army of toy inventors and toy makers cannot be few banished from the land. Lucky is the child that has but few tovs and those home made, Let it have such things as will help educate its senses and prepare it for life. Let the boy have his blocks and his ball and his cart, and let the girl have her home made rag doll.
Christmas is fast becoming a positive curse. What between gorging ourselves with rich foods, bestowing upon each other useless and senseless gifts and corrupting our children with a multitude of toys,.the day Is of evil omen. It is a day of overindulgence all around, ‘The Christmas tree becomes a deadly upas if we are not careful. ‘Nothing is as salutary with children as to keep them living on a low-key and close to common things. Let them find joy and entertainment, as they surely will if you give them a chance, in the simple and near at hand, Do not seek to excite and toxicate them with the strange, the bizarre, the extraordinary, Let them alone. If their craving for novelty is stimulated, there is danger that they will find life flat, stale and unprifitable. I doubt if I had one boughten toy when a child, I had a ball when I got old enough to go to school, But I made it myself, I made many balls out of the yarn of old stockings and covered them with leather. I had kites, but I made them myself. A boy learns many things in making a kite, I had sleds, carts, stilts, strings, pin boxes, darts, crossbows, tops, puzzle blocks, etc., but I made them all by myself. I made most of my own slate pencils by. Cutting them out of soft pieces of slate that we used to get one and a half miles from school. | earned my playthings, and they surfeited me. They each meant something. Mae As
Look into any of our wealthy homes at Christmastime where there are several children, and see the wicked extravagance in the bestowal of Toys. It is a regular toy debauch. The children become sated and lose their interest before half the presents are distributed. In a few days most of them are discarded; the boy contents himself with some simple thing like a wagon or a cart, and the girl with something equally simple and commonplace. Let us stop this wicked corrupting of the innocents.— Jhon Jhon Burroughs, in The Independent
