Urban living
Living in closed empty spaces
When humans first had to live in caves, it was not that they
enjoyed the comfort of reeking, compact spaces. Rather it was the sense of
protection that was contingent upon their living with their backs to each other
that made them live in the peculiar manner.
Uncertainty was looming deep in the air, which meant that no
one could truly say that he/she would survive the next day. But, more often
than not the next day did come, as we can see their progenitors running all
around. And they did in the glorious sunshine venture out to seek whatever
means of nourishment that they could derive from their surroundings. Can i eat
that, should i .... what the heck, let's just give it a try... they couldn't
have cared less. life was so precious, the spirit of surviving stronger still, in
spite of which they took risks that you and i in that situation would never
take. don't beleive me?
well you might have in your minds the carefree risk junkies
who jump from buildings, motorcycles and sometimes both... which is impressive
but irrelevant to our arguement. but what about sneaking in front of the lion's
den to get the fruit from the tree just beside it. And do remember that there
are practically no ambulances to take you to the magic place where every wound
can be undone. So, why did our great adventure junkie forefathers experiment?
Or I mean how could they, knowing that the odds were so adversely against
them...
given the limited amount of choices that they had, risks
were inevitable part of life. and death was always looming there, so was life
and a promise of having discovered something that worked, worked wonderfully
well..... since no one can perform with pressure constantly hanging by the edge
of your nuts, its always better to ignore certain uncertainities and live hopefully and to your fullest. Life is short, life is
beautiful.
Each one of us, apes, are born with our own special
eccentricities. A chimpanzee realises pretty early in its life that every one
of its mates is infact going to be irrefutably black and hairy. What sets apart
one of the great evolutionary product from the other is their behaviour,
attitudes and how that is reflected in their dealings with others. Early humans
dressed up to show up those differences, as we do today in a less poignant
manner with our subtle makeups, dresses that are inherently the very
same....differences in the logo, the list goes on. Someone might disagree, but
then I'd ask them to look at the subjects in any party, in any part of the
world. Official parties all over contain as many suits as there are men and as
many dresses as there are women. None of the subjects is too different from his
neighbouring one. Not essentially, not in a big way.... why's that?
For the apes, for the our forefathers, these differences
meant a lot more than what they do to us. Fashion sense is just a derivatory
offset of what it meant to conciously choose and build up on your peculiar
nature. Your attitude determined whether you survived or well got eaten by some
tiger. It was something to be cultivated and something that was connected at
the deepest level of what you really are, what the workings of your dna
machinery wants you to be.
Lacking a well organised culutural delivery package meant
that the field was wide open for you to choose any sort of culture that you
could dream up of. Then you could hope that the one you chose helps you
survive. Even as late as a couple of decades ago, people lived with their
hearts out in the nature... which means they would in their daily life follow
their instincts with no pre built roads and gps maps guiding them to the
nearest burger outlet. They had a knack of realising that there was meat out
there, the rest was matter of a good run and a throw that could peirce the very
heart of the matter.
Inevitably though, not too many people made it through in
the fish eat fish world. Only some very potent combination of genes could endow
you with the potential to survive in tough world. A tough world, open end to
end and yet conjined ( continents were joined sometime in our past). A world
truly filled with the opportunities of discovering somethign really new... a
new mate? a new enemy? and the uncertainity of all could drive anyone crazy in
the first instance.
Today I might have all the facilities of any well endowed
tribal cheif, yet I can never have the one thing that he had..... He was the
absolute king of the world around him. His personality had the power over each
and every thing in the environment. Quite ironically he was powerless in
afflicting any large scale change. But there was no one to tell him what to do
or what not to. It was he, his particularities and quirks... with every one of
its fallacies that could guide him through life.
And since no particular model existed prior to him, it was
wide open world for the taking.
Over the course of time, more specifically nearly 10 or more
milleniums ago, some of our forefathers started farming. Rudimentary, as it
was... it was well suited to the individuals whose propensity to risk taking
was the least. They could stay at one place for as long as they liked. And
since they had to ensure their own survival in the old age, they raised as many
children as they could. All of them were disciplined to live under the
constraints of agricultre and their behaviour modified by physical punishments
and later as the growth of religions shows... through mental
punishments...because remember, it wasn't the tribal society that wanted the
homogneity... monodirectional slaves were the requirement of the
agricultarists. Any deviation from the successful profile of the farmer wasn't
taken kindly to, and curbed. Life had changed to closed spaces, in huts that
pitted their idiosyncracies too harshly to escape unschathed.
The adventorous spirits never did remain in an agricultural
setup for long. They took to the wild with all its glory.Which ultimately meant
that there were well... only less of the brave spirits in the agricultural
societies. The cowards did overtake the courageous finally and the spread of
organised society spread far and wide. Every farmable peice of land was
utilised to get the very last drops of nutrition. Hunting graduallly was
reduced to a suppliment and in the past 10 centuries or so, it has dwindled to
an irratic practise..... or a pastime. We prefer the herded flock far more for
we get a far better chance of getting their meat, than say a strong beautiful
animal in its environs.
Our mating rituals are a very good example of what happened
to our societies. A premodern man could in the spirit of his youth go all
around and win with his strenght the fairest maiden that he could. As many as
he could, provided he could sustain them. Those men and women, pure and
untouched with the needs of cramped living would live under the free sky which
they could call their own and a world that was a constant source of wonder.
Like a child they would explore the experiences and colors of the world, til
their youth was burned with time and they would die fairly in a beautifully
mean world.
With all due respect to the improvements of modern age,
variety has dwindled today. As the stock of the farmers who captured the world,
we are perhaps more predisposed to ape than the apes we derive from. The rules
of society aren't the only things forcing us to behave in a more or less set of
uniform behaviour. Petty differences of tastes not withstanding, the globalised
culture has put a certain set of values enshrined in our global conscience.
Today, more than any other time in our past, we live in a similiar fashion,
have the same sets of thoughts and have the largest collection of common
knowledge. Ubiquitous media devices, mobiles and whatnots seem to be like the
fine edged scapel that is shaping us more and more towards that amalgated
common identity.
urban living pitted the individual differences too severly
to be allowed to survive together. Everyone had to agree on a common behavior
to be followed for the peaceful, dense co existence. No longer were there wide
open spaces to go to, unexplored worlds waiting to be explored where you could
take your exquisitely crafted set of attitudes and hope to survive. Its a
meaner world out there today than anytime in the past if you want to be your
own king. Men have taken over any and all peices of earth that they were able
to and filled them as far as possible with concrete structures of thoughts and
behaviors.
Little by little, men had come out of the wild. And then
suddenly in the last 10 decades, there was no in. Everyone was out in the
common civilisation. Today we seek to iron out all the little differences that
do exist in different parts of the world. From Chinese to Belgian to Peruvian,
all the cultures are loosing their inherent pecularities. The rich and famous
world over don the same attire, eat the same food and act in the same conceited
manner. ( There are non essential differences, but nothing as powerful as that
existed between an Inuit and Negro...)
Infact, aren't we trying to follow an ideal behaviour,
goals, individual ? Christ, Mohammed, Rama, Lady Gaga, Beiber are people on
which millions of others base theirs. The same sets of role models throughout
the world preach the same values and inspire the same attitudes.
The first men setting out of their houses, in the glorious
sun peiricing its way through the untamed jungles, went about in a world that
was in its every part as much of a wonder to be discovered and in an equal part
a wonder to be built. I download new apps to feel the same joy.
I feel a hollow, joyless hole in my being, that needs to feel
the earth beneath its feet. Not the concrete that has for too long hidden the
forests, the wilderness that shoud be here. Better off though I am in my warm
blankets and a laptop to convey my thoughts world over, this hole shall remain.
A part of me is still roaming around with the first men,
flushed with adrelaine at the discovery of a whole new world behind the
mountains... animals that seem to be a part of a dream, fruits whose taste I
would know only by getting past those animals.
My thoughtless existence, without the slightest concern for
my next meal is far more comfortable, but I have with the most of others closed
my heart with stopgaps. Movies, novels, trecks, religion.........and yet in the
innermost recesses of my mind, behind the heavy locked doors lies a part of me,
frozen in urban life.
