Wednesday, March 10, 2010

'Performance' Vs 'Self'

As I go deep inside me, I find myself oscillating around a mean position. Although I don’t know exactly where the mean position lye, but I am able to watch myself moving between two extreme positions. Between these two extreme positions, there are a number of situations where I behave differently. And my behavior at any instant depends directly or indirectly on the people around me and my motive for being in that situation. However, deep in the core I am the same irrespective of the situation and my behavior. If my observation is truthful, then the questions arise that: why the behavior is so important in the first place? Why do I try to perform well always to improve my behavior in the next place so that everyone around me, find me the way I want them to? If behavior is so superficial, why is it important to perform in every situation I face and not being what I really am?

Is it so because I am afraid of being rejected by others? Or am I not able to face what others really think about me? Or I simply do not want to let anyone perceive myself the way I do not want? Or am I grown too much insensitive towards my own self? Or was I never that sensitive for my own ‘self’?

I have started this blog to create a channel for myself to reflect truly what I am and not what I am expected to be. Hopefully, this will help me to keep myself as close to my mean position as possible.

14 comments:

  1. well xpressed! very true dat our behaviour is governed by the norms of society,the people around us and the situations and many a times we behave different than ourselves because may be we dont have enough courage to be ourselves in every situation

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  3. About a year ago, I was possessed by nearly identical questions. I wondered about my basic appearance which was motivated by the people around me. I wondered about my career which I had chosen because so many others considered it to be top-class. I wondered about my likes, which I had chosen just because it resonated with the style of the day. It took me some time to change all that. The transient period was not very joyful if I consider the remarks I got from my friends, colleagues, family members and relatives. They questioned the way I was dressed. They doubted the career I had chosen for myself. They almost titled my life a ‘failure’ – All because I insulated myself from the outside world and started making decisions entirely at my own. Deep down in my heart I was happy (Most of the times). But I am still living in this world and to be ‘yourself’ is a daily fight with the consensus of the world, ideas of the society and expectations of the family and friends.

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  4. Thank you all for your comments!
    @megharana: I am not talking about society and norms of society, but our perception about situations that governs our behavior. Why something which is our, is governed by outer world?
    @no self: Don't know about you.. No Probs we can keep it anonymous :).
    "the image we are always in fear of losing is so vulnerable to people's views obviously this is illusion not a bit of truth in it ."
    Impressive! need some clarification on it.
    @Strider: Hmmm... Nice experience! But is the fight against the world really? Or our own projection of the world?
    The question still remains.

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  5. "our projection of the world" :) There are only two alternatives I see.. Fight or move towards the woods ... I think I will try the second one later on!

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  6. Interesting! If the fight is with 'our projection of world', then what is the need of moving to the woods? :) How can it help?
    If it is really against the 'our projection of the world', then there is no need to fight I think. It will be violence with own self.

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  8. Its like me and you standing together at one side of the bridge. I am asking to go to the other side and see what was there. You are insisting on telling me all of it without going to the other side. :)

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  9. Nice analogy! I am not asking about the other side, but the need of going that side, which we don't even know what it is.
    I am trying to find out what is wrong this side and how can it be overcome.

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  10. "If the fight is with 'our projection of world', then what is the need of moving to the woods? :)" Need was specified in the article :)

    If you want to control something, you choose to stay at a location where you are strongest and you have that 'something' in your reach. Moving 'within' the 'projection of world' to control it ...

    To fight does not mean to opt for a gory murder, something necessarily violent... to fight means to have one goal - win over.. may be with knowledge.. may be with love.. everyone will try according to his own temperament....

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  11. Hi JP,
    Let me pour in some official words (bade time baad chance mila hai).
    Its cool to see your blog, classy combination of cool author (really cool photo first) and lot of food for mind. The topic 'Performance' Vs 'Self' is little tricky in nature and in some cases lead to post two of 'fear' of not performing and also not self. :D. (By taking theme of post two consider it as this is just that we are made to feel that way , and truth is other way round)That sounds like lot of goodness... lets normalize it and keep somewhere in BC grades.

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  12. Hii Gupta Ji!

    Thanks for the complements :)

    'Fear of not performing' you mentioned is really interesting. I had to think over it many times.

    The concept of normalizing is also interesting. In fact it is normalized generally, though it is important to understand the balance.

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  13. Yaar! I expected your dp to take me to the vastness of your imagination, but it didn't. :)

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  14. In one word, I'd term it 'Hypocrisy' hypocrisy towards self, hypocrisy towards everyone.

    Though what others think of us means a lot to us, but that should only change us in a better way.
    The policy of changing behavioral colors like a chameleon is only going to make us an object of mockery among those whom we wish to see appreciation.
    Change, is a fine word, and so should be its ramifications. A temporary and outward change can lead to frail moments of joy and false sense of achievement, but as time passes by, the ghosts of our past come back to haunt our present and plague our future.
    So let that change be for good, so that we ourselves feel elated of what we become.

    People will either like us, or not like us from our behavior. Its their indifference that we dread, which can only be countered by being who we are.

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