To the many people, who think that they are always right, but might just be Blind Sheep.
Song Dedication : Prodigal by OneRepublic and Let it Be by The Beatles.
Ok, I don't know how many of you have heard the story of the Prodigal Son from the Bible, but before I go on with my rant, you must know it. So here goes copy + paste from Wiki.
The story is found in Luke 15:11-32. Jesus tells the story of a man who has two sons. The younger demands his share of his inheritance while his father is still living, and goes off to a distant country where he "waste[s] his substance with riotous living" and eventually has to take work as a swineherd (clearly a low point, since swine are unclean in Judaism). There he comes to his senses and decides to return home and throw himself on his father's mercy, thinking that even if his father does disown him, being one of his servants is still far better than feeding pigs. But when he returns home, his father greets him with open arms and hardly gives him a chance to express his repentance. He kills a fatted calf to celebrate his return. The older brother resents the favored treatment of his faithless brother and complains of the lack of reward for his own faithfulness. But the father responds:
" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'
So it's broadly about a son, who made his own decisions, went away and eventually came back.
Now what I wanna talk about is, the feeling of going and the feeling of coming back.
The feeling of going. Why did the Son go away? Because that's what his own Self wanted. Why do we stray away from the norm? Because we think it's right. Is our own feeling incorrect simply coz it's not widely accepted? No. Or at least it shouldn't be that way. What I mean is, the Son or even us, are never wrong in trying to experiment, in trying to do what maybe perceived to be wrong or doing the wacky, even though we infringe on so many rights of other individuals. Especially coz that's how mistakes are made. And discoveries found.
Here is where the distinction must be made between my own mistakes and learning from someone else's mistakes. It wouldn't be incorrect to say that some people know the outcome of actions and that we should learn from them. And that's how you learn from the past. But that learning is purely limited, for times change and also concepts of right and wrong. So if the world largely believes that Pop Musik is crap when compared to Rock, one should get into both and then make that decision independently. And that's not the mistake of believing in Pop, but simply a judgment that should be yours and not someone else's. Same with Religion. You think the scriptures are nonsense, maybe once you read them you'll know for sure. Ascribing to a particular belief system, simply coz it's modern and fancy, is the dumbest thing to do. So if I believe that I don't want to have children, maybe I should spend some time with my young nephew to be sure that this is what I want or not. Of course, somethings like rape and murder are intrinsically bad, so don't commit the mistake of Rape, and say I was just checking.
The feeling of return. Once you've done your research, figured out what you believe is right and wrong, there could be two cases. Either your conclusion matches the world's or it doesn't. In Case One, you're pretty much fucked, coz the world was right all along and you were wrong. But I personally believe that the feeling of knowing by yourself trumps everything else. So if I concluded somehow that Religion was inevitable in the world, for a moral code of conduct is required and one constructed out of rights cannot operate, and that too is the larger belief, then me knowing on my own, through my own study of society will give me a surety of truth. On the other hand, a mere acceptance of the above would be playing Blind Sheep. And the confidence of truth and it's proof is great relief in the head.
Now the receptive aspect of the feeling of return, The Father or The World. If you look closely, The Father accepted The Son. He had no more qualms, no problems and was just so happy that His Son had finally returned. And that precisely is what The World should be like. Open to forgiveness and ready to hold you in it's arms. However that really doesn't happen. The World, or so I have experienced, more often than not, becomes arrogant and virtually says-->"I told you so!" And it's this feeling that creates fear of experimentation. What if I am wrong? What if the World is the rule and I am the exception? And it's this attitude of The World, that kills many hearts, either by the means of killing the passion of experimentation or by "I told you so!" This is what I call The Prodigal Feeling.
What is worse, is when the world follows a certain belief without concrete proof and when you find that concrete proof by challenging the existing, you become the dumbfuck and The Prodigal Son. So if The World believes in God, and you question the existence of God, and thereby in your research find that god truly exists, you are the person The World will call mad.
Another interesting dimension is this. If you have the courage to go against the norm, then the questions and comments from the norm shouldn't bother you and hence fuck the world. But the beauty is this. You can never be independent of the world. Or so is the case with me. The World is my check and balance and which is why Prodigalness fucks me over so much. The World will always tell me what it believes, by proof or not, and in that check, it will continue to question what I do at every step of my own journey. And that constant questioning troubles me so much. But then of course, I am learning to rationalize it, yet at times I am angry at The World/The Father for being hypocritical and questioning without actual proof or self discovery. I am certain about myself, you may also find something similar.
In Case Two, when proof is contrary to larger belief, it becomes your duty to propagate the right belief, how you do it, is the matter of later post :)
And that's about it. Prodigal Self is interesting. Our Journey is our own. People can tell me The Beatles are awesome, gift me the Musik of The Beatles, but at the end, it's my own choice to like/dislike them. And if I like them, merely coz The World does, then I am Blind Sheep. And I don't want to live with that.
Two Hindi phrases before I end.
1. Bhed-Chal
2. Subah ka bhoola agar shaam ko aaye, toh usse bhoola nahi kehte.
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