Every one is not the same… One of the easiest assumptions in life is that if I am like this then how can the rest of the world not be the same. If I feel so much pain over something everyone also must feel the same in the same situation. It is when they fail to react the same way that most of the hurts, fights, tears spring up. It is the most difficult thing in the world to place ourselves in another person’s shoes. I wonder if it can ever be done. Each of us is an end product of different water cement ratios with our own unique combination of admixtures; compacted to a different degree and placed in our own mould. How can we ever transcend all these differences and understand why a person behaves such and such???
So, did Hitler never feel guilty for all the atrocities that have been committed because of him??? May be the wonderful thing called conscience was never in his recipe at all. So he probably never thought of it that way. Like Alfred says in the Dark Knight “Some men just like to see the world burn”. The world around us offers us so many choices. So many paths we can take. I believe destiny has our own picked out way ahead of us… we get there some time in life. It is only the longer or shorter path that is in our hands. Well may be we also have this emergency button of totally shipwrecking our future also within reach. So, how much of who we are meant to be is really in our hands? If the right ingredients are left out then even the best of opportunities may not help us make the right future.
The only way to understand the present is to know the past. This was one theory I picked up from my uncle (Ravindranath Kola) when he told me that caste was kind of important even today because it gives us a broad idea of how people of a certain caste tend to behave in a certain way. So knowing what a person has been through explains his attitude and thinking at the present moment more then anything else. But then I am caught between thinking if their past excuses them for the present or is it a “so what? They should learn to get over it!” situation. I tend to lean over the former most of the time… unless I am too angry and then I wonder why they shouldn’t get over it. Then, when I mellow down I tend to think ‘well, not every one has the fire to get over big obstacles in life.’
Getting over our shortcomings is a difficult task. It is the task of life time I think. Though it seems that getting to know our shortcomings is the major hurdle I think it is mustering enough determination and courage to actually begin to change your own self. It is those rare individuals that do that that enter the historical records of great people admired and slightly envied by the rest of us common folk. I know I have contradicted my own statement many times… but then again there isn’t a universal right or wrong is there. It is all a matter of perspective… and each situation calls for its own set of rules to play with.
