Who owns You?
It’s like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife,
It’s like meeting the man of my dreams,
And then meeting his be¦yootiful wife!
And isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?
So goes a famous number ˜Ironic’ by Alanis Morisette, a rock star. If you have heard it, you’ll know that the entire song is an ode to all kinds of upsets life is wont to bring us. Well, at least Morisette went ahead and made a song out of it, something we can all hum and head bang to! Real life tries to be a bit different, but I should think it vain. When we face upsets in life, putting our problems to a beat and making a tune out of it is the farthest from our minds. That’s normal we say: losing our heads, losing our temper, essentially losing our ˜cool’.
Something like, ˜I’m just not myself today’. When problems escalate in magnitude we say, œI feel lost. When we feel as if we can no longer face a situation we say, œThat’s not who I am. At such a time, suppose we stop and think about œwho am I?
Again, it is ironic indeed that we focus so much on this question but in a whole another way “ almost topsy-turvy. It’s like twisting your arm from the elbow over your head to get to your nose. You are yourself. Simple?
There is a superficial industry that urges you to find œyourself in a range of fashion IT has designed for you; œlook at the real you in jewellery IT has designed for you that IT stands to profit from, and if you are still not happy throwing your money around, it proposes you afford the magic within a bottle, now new & improved “ in 10ml packs if 65ml stands out of your reach; as if that wasn’t enough there are things you could eat, things you could do, places where you could go to, that promise a new ˜you’. All because you’re worth it. Worth. That is all it comes down to. That’s market for you, ˜You’ being the magic word. Isn’t it ironic?
The real you is trying to keep up with the person this market is appealing to. The market is not just about trades though. Being traded on various levels of our existence are comforts, relationships, ideas, values, etc. The consumer economy is but the smallest aspect of it all. Greater aspects include our relationships, our families, our workplaces. We give and take based on how much value we are getting for our goods. And those goods could be anything. It could be love, it could be trust or friendship, it could be self-esteem, an item many of us say we are robbed of. And this is dangerous because all that we value within ourselves is safe under the vault of self-esteem. When this vault is broken into, all that is precious to us is open game for others to take or use or to destroy.
Ironically enough, to break this vault it has to be an insider’s job. An outsider may cast designs and even commit actions physically to break it but the final guard is let down by you when the strong brace of self-love falters on shards of judgment. If men fall prey to misdirected messages of machismo, the burden of conventions, traditions, and morality finds its way into women’s lives.
Men, our society does not treat you as intelligent, sentient beings with potential to grow, to inspire trust, and to shoulder responsibility. Instead, men are seen as power-hungry monsters neither in control of their regard, nor their anatomy.
Women, our society does not treat you as intelligent, sentient beings with potential to grow, to inspire trust, and to shoulder responsibility. You are ogled more often than you are looked at, even if you are seen you are ignored, you are judged on either extremes – oversensitive or bossy, and most shameful insults in any language describe actions that could be perpetrated upon your gender.
In my tribute to our Sheroes and Heroes trying shoulder to shoulder to survive this onslaught of pop (pop for popular, pop also for patriarchal “ that pop refers to father is a coincidence isn’t it ironic?) culture, I want to say that an equitable, fair, and truly civilized society demands of you not to be victims who sacrifice their happiness, their careers, their passions but rather that you own to it and exploit them to the best of your abilities. For people to respect your talents, time, and ambitions enough, it is you who will have to respect them first.
You are all you want to be.
So true “You are all you want to be”. The most important aspect being knowing who I am and what I want to be. Loved the blog.