i read a post in someone’s blog yesterday, i think it was wonderbug (new entrant in bloggers park), old post but good food for thought, the subject was “Has our self-created society and its by-products ruined our personal peace and happiness?”…this is my version of the same argument…. to start with, the concept of society, as we see it, is extremely dynamic….every time we say ‘times have changed’, society is implicitly present….at the same time personal peace and happiness is a subjective issue and itself changes with time….an example materialistically, i was happy with cassettes 5 years back, now i hunt for cds….it makes me happier…in terms of other happiness, 5 years back, i could stare at stars and feel peace, now the scene would also include my wife..hehe…change again….
i will again choose social interaction as an arbitrary parameter to judge the changes in society, judge is not the appropriate word, coz the judgement is too subjective to be of any use….mobiles, the internet etc has reduced interaction as we used to know it, but it has also brought in chat and blog communities, which transcend geographical barriers, good, you say?, but it also has brought down long chats with siblings, neighbourhood friends etc… isnt that bad?..a balance, but how many of us are able to achieve it, so, is it all that good, or all that bad??joint families are almost extinct, nuclear families are in…extended families are also a minor statistic…i can go to all the entertainment spots with just my wife for company , happy ? yes….but the sense of security and the good feeling arising out of the dependancies and mutual harmony and sometimes lil disharmonies in a joint family is thrown out of the window? a balance again, sorry boss, in this case it is almost impossible….
yes, it is not possible to get everything in life, but it is also not possible to not think about opportunity costs and ‘what might have beens’…a kid born today will not miss the joy of being cuddled and pampered by grandparents, because he might not experience it at all, the grandparents will not miss pizza coz they have not experienced it at all….i will miss both 🙂 …..but thats not something exclusive to me or my generation…lucky kids?? because they can buy most of the stuff that gives them happiness..or lucky grandparents ?? coz they are happy with the simple pleasures in life…..whos to decide??thats life, the most undefinable, unpredictable, unfathomable thing i have come across……almost done, but not before
manuscrypts trivia
got it from one of my egroups…F-aiku: A Japanese PoemI tried my hand at poetry the other day. It’s called “Happiness”. And it goes like this…Free beer,Naked women,Paid vacation,Free beer,Happiness.Some of my poet friends suggested I turn it into haiku. A haiku, basically, is a Japanese poem that contains 17 syllables. Mine had 16. And no matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t make it a haiku. So now it reads like this…Free beer,Naked women,Paid vacation,Free beer,Happiness.Fuck haiku.:o)- vikramwww.vikramchauhan.com