The Scary Phantoms of My Dreams

Dreams turn into reality and ideas come into fruition for hardcore “aggressive” individuals or so the colloquialism goes. To which if I might be permitted to gently add: Nowadays they come in packs! Individuals, I mean.

Which brings me up to scratch to ask a fair question: Are “humble” people in the minority these days? Don’t their dreams come into reality, their ideas to fruition? To answer such questions, allow me to start this essay by disgruntling you a bit, just a little bit, not more than that I assure you, to drive home my generalizing escapist viewpoints.

Being Old-Fashioned and Humble

The truth is, I never was, culturally, morally, socially, emotionally an “assertive” or an “aggressive” youngster. I am comfortable thinking that it is for the ‘arrogant unfeeling oppressors’ to be like that, and not my kind of thing to hanker after these ugly beauties. Some people even find ways to internalize these vicious words within their overzealous materialistic mindsets in the fond hope of getting more successful in life and achieve, well, whatever is there to achieve, often by burning up Earth resources and debunking other people’s polite manners as some kind of human frailty.

I say chaps: the world has limited means and so being aggressive and all that clichéd bunkum (which is woven around such behavioural attitudes of some people) isn’t really the path of virtue or happiness or harmony. Equally disturbing is the fact that Aggressive lots change the ballgame of success and achievement often in their favour in such a way that it often ends up mentally hurting others who are not by nature so ‘aggressive’ or never have been or never want to.

Need a quick etiquette refresher? Here’s something of that sort:

In a materialistic society fascinated by materialistic things, aggressive people are allowed their transgressions with impunity, for them the ends justify the means.

Then why isn't all habituation of the people of this sort? It is because being aggressive, among other things, is a satanic – shaitaan-ic phantom – thing, which fans the hellfire of one's selfish, egotistical inability, hamstrung by constant fear and rascally anxieties, to put the interests of others before oneself – not even once are they capable of doing that, and there are humble people who by nature will not stoop to the low levels of inhuman behavior to grab what they want from life and head off in the direction of name and fame. Oh man, I abhor thinking if aggressive people were to completely assume control over our workspaces and social or friends circle it’ll be nothing short of a nightmare, an apocalyptic nightmare!

Humble Versus Aggressive

Being aggressive got to hurt every other people who are not. The world probably has more Humbler people than the Aggressive ones have us believe, and it suffices to say that the world runs on the humble peoples’ load-taking abilities and not on Aggressive peoples’ hypocritical lip service. To put things in perspective, Humble people are considered necessary and important to be around, especially at our workplaces, more than the Aggressive ones, in a world which is being increasingly stupefied by egoistical self-seekers and self-appraising globe-swallowers; they (humble people) cannot be in the minority, can they?

That’s why humble people are found doing the dirty work or tackling the donkey’s load of work, whereas Aggressive ones, considered ‘smarter’ and fashionably ‘uglier' are found riding on these very donkeys and head out in every direction to dig self-serving holes of their I-am-your-boss-like supremacy and their equally gaga superiors are most often than not hand-in-gloves to the pulling the wool over everybody's eyes and jump right in while also forcefully taking the 'credit' for everything that smells of promotion, better perks, and good beefy standing among their like-minded peers; but for unpleasant consequences that may arise, just blame the poor donkeys, please! The docile donkeys, on the other hand, are left braying to their heart’s content, without any chance for the advancement of their rank or position in the 'tall' hierarchical structure. That’s my funny take on the subject. Wait, there's more...

But if being aggressive or assertive in life ruffles someone’s feathers or hurts or being needlessly mindful of how others feel or behave, which is on an endless loop nowadays, then I see myself out of this man-made cheating game partitioned by narrow walls of human's hateful rage and unpalatable jealousies. Shoving feathers up your backside will only make you a chicken or a turkey, nothing else; and the one which goes under the butcher's cleaver for sure. It doesn't make any sense.

I mean there’s no beauty of life when anger becomes the norm and that’s why I seek freedom from such negative strife. I feel humbleness, humility, modesty, gentleness, and even shyness genes are going to be the only set of generous positive impulses I’ll always have to live by, no matter what. I would like to stay positive about this thing in my life. I am of the humble opinion that if I am serious about success knowing this will help me get there. (What a pity really that chasing “success” and “achievement,” striving for “money” and “instant gratification” over happiness has become the norm of living human life these days). In my limited understanding, it appears that people are striving to be in a place that is virtually impossible. Miserable individuals will make miserable societies. And this doesn’t make the world a better place to live in.

I am still not done with this roster of somewhat half-baked ideas here, there are more such epiphanies ahead…so buckle uptight.

This apart, aggressive folks care less about being humble as they like scurrying after the kind of success they think others, especially the humble people, would be proud of and pat their shoulders in appreciation for having done a great job when they achieve something of value that they can show others and be proud of! Such is their modus operandi! On top of that, if they can get a promotion or a hike or conquer something of value that others don’t or can’t have quickly enough, it will be worth every trouble to trouble everyone (read humbly people) to bag such forcefully acquired duplicitous accolades. In the bludgeoning quest to have ‘em all for themselves, they forget to be human and that’s where the entire gamut of the problem lies. Success doesn’t elude the Humble people; it gets hijacked by Aggressive brutes.

If you refer to them as strategic-thinkers, go-getters, overachievers they’d, Omigod, blush from one pinky ear to another by readily acknowledging even to your mock appreciation. Getting a kick out of making strong attempts to win their career-making battles often over other people’s emotional inconveniences, troubles, and nausea, is tantamount to sniffing around for the opiate of success and automatic influence of power over others: the crooked kind that people who are by nature humble always abhor and despise resolutely.

In any case, being “assertive” or “aggressive” was never considered gentle or humble for the way of life I used to lead and the family background I came from. Actually, I’d go so far as to say that these two words were, and still are, anathema; there’s almost an “anti-social” element tagged to it perpetuating which can likely spread the cancer of harassment, alarm, and distress to one or more persons or in the society at large. And Hark! That’s one of the reasons why I loathe Aggressive people who I had to put up with once upon a time at school. Although I have no problems with others who like being aggressive, I am very happy to be humbly “aggressive,” – if that sounds good enough a reason to explain why I despise aggressive people and still live to narrate this somewhat egotistical tale of mine. (I am likely inaccurate in my evaluation here, however, I can’t prove it otherwise).

Being Old-Fashioned Is the Only Way to Sustain Life on Earth

I am happy to be to some degree an old-fashioned bhadrolok (Bengali for decent one), too delicately subtle and passive to a fault that even squashing a bug or a mosquito by mistake might have that terrible ring of misappropriation of one’s inherited virtues writ all over it (that doesn't mean I don't like to squash mosquitoes anymore, I do!); consequently, becoming needlessly aggressive and domineering is nothing short of being Satanic and that, as I say see it, is poisonous enough to asphyxiate my way of infinitely sweet Brahmanic existence: the Hindu highway of life of my beaming, gleaming, and shining India.

Most of all, I am used to believing that being spiritlessly domineering and tactlessly aggressive to achieve something great (or not so great) in life is not in God’s glory, it cannot be, and I still have that belief system, that conviction, proudly intact. What's more, being aggressive is like an overshot tumor that spreads quickly in our society and I was one of those mute witnesses to that thing happening during my growing up years in the wonderful Allwell parkland. As things stand now, I still am freely detached from the idea of being aggressive and all that horrific tosh being bandied about these days that one can achieve something great in life only by being aggressive and not by being humble, is all over the place. It’s a pity really. Too bad an upbringing shapes their way of life in adulthood. It seems true that upbringing is humanity's central problem.

Being aggressive is wrong and erroneous thinking on the part of those who cannot ward off this scary phantom out of their angry lives, their dreams, and their part of realities that confuse them endlessly. I recommend they should look themselves in the mirror: the kind that looks back at you and try and think positively about life and what you desire from it and ask yourself this question while you look back at yourself in the same mirror: Why does one have to inculcate oneself with an aggressiveness trait to make your dreams come true? You don’t have to fall prey to this satanic element that continues to exist in our human society, do you?

Give Humble and its lovely humility gene a chance and see what it entails for you. Realize that being humble it’s on Mother Nature’s side, whereas being Aggressive isn’t as it destroys than it likes to preserve the sweet smell of living life happily. Being old-fashioned and humble is the only way to sustain life on Earth.

As Paul Auster says so beautifully in one of his books:
“Good begets good; evil begets evil; and even if the good you give is met by evil, you have no choice but to go on giving better than you get.”

Therefore, the good in our lives always begets good. Humble is good. Aggressive has to be evil. So be humble, always.

So What Do You Want To Become?

If all that you need to become in life is a Doctor or an Engineer or for that matter a Milkman or a Choir Singer or an Air Traffic Controller, you don’t need to be aggressive at all, rather you need to read your lessons with love and care – and what is increasingly essential now: unconditionally love your parents for having given you birth in the first place – towards achieving your career goals and in my humble opinion that’s enough stack of virtues you can peruse to see you through many ordeals that your life tosses at you. Likewise, it also matters whether you end up being “aggressive” or “humble” or both or whatever worldly manmade s**t is latched onto you in the process!

You’ve got to remember one thing that Aggressive is a vice, Humble is a virtue. Kindly choose your personal behaviour attributes wisely and learn from others who are humble. Is that like a reprimand? So be it. If you cannot seek proper anti-dote or reach out for friendly help on how to become humble, you need to get your toes all the way up to your head checked by a competent medical practitioner! It is as simple as it sounds.

Ostensibly, this line of encouraging albeit – I come clean on this – self-satisfied thinking has afforded me a wonderful consolation: of going slow and steadied with a tension-free head on my shoulders, like no other thing could in my life; except perhaps pursuing an Arts degree: English Literature, precisely. It had brought me much-needed gifts like “control,” “tact,” and “affability” and some creative juices of “emotional steadfastness” in its wake. And lest I forget mentioning the gorgeous memory of the girl I was so crazy about at my school. How can I forget her?

Golden memories instill a strong sense of nostalgia in you so much so that you become eternally thankful for the kind of contemplative life you lead and that such unforgettable calming recollections (in tranquility) go on to shape your future, promising to be never anything out of ordinary that you cannot handle or deal with. Memories, especially of the vintage kind, don’t matter whether they are sweet or bittersweet, flattering or dismaying, have that innate magical power to see you through thick and thin, good times as well as bad. To me, memories will always be special, invaluably so.

Literature and Love, Closely Together

I believe Literature and Love go hand in hand. In many ways, you cannot learn the former and reject the latter or vice versa, and in my case, I really can’t tell one from the other: that’s how much I love Literature and Love. Moreover, at one point in my life, these things were inseparable to the point of being overly obsessive about them, so the idea of doing Engineering was relegated to the backbench even as Medicine seemed undoable. Is it right to say that too much love for Literature and Love had trumped the idea of doing Medicine forever? Maybe... I am not so sure.

I love Literature and I love Love. If Love initiates you into Literature, Literature also has an ingenious agency that secretly works to escort you headlong into love. Think about the canonical greats of the past millennium like Tagore, Keats, and Tennyson and you’ll appreciate what I mean. I am homing in on to that gushy little topic shortly. Or should I? I leave it to your good offices to decide. Hehe.

By Arindam Moulick

Postscript: The above essay is the third sequel (part 4) to the main essay titled "That Good Old-Fashioned Existential Angst" published in November 2018 on my blog site Pebbles on the Beach. More on this 'dream' theme in my next blog.

• Click here to read the second sequel (part 3) titled "What Dreams May Come" published in January 2019.
• Click here to read the first sequel (part 2) titled "A Dream That Will Never Come True" published in December '18.
• Click here to read the main essay (part 1) titled "That Good Old-Fashioned Existential Angst" published in November 2018.

- This article under the same title has been published on the EzineArticles.com website. Click here to read it: https://ezinearticles.com/?The-Scary-Phantoms-of-My-Dreams&id=10049012

What Dreams May Come

It may sound pompous of me but I am willing to take that risk to say that I used to find my school friends’ pursuit of ‘dreams,’ of which we often spiritedly talked about, too easily conventional a narrative formula and I thought the kind of animated level-headedness and canny shrewdness it takes for oneself in order to get mentally get prepared to sit for entrance exams (at the drop of a hat) was not really my humble idea of building a career for myself.

The idea of gaining potential name and fame by studying well so that I could be fiercely “competitive” than most others could manage was highly off-putting, even schizophrenic for the delicate soul on my person to contend with.

A Different Perspective

"You have to dream before your dreams can come true."
- A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

I decided I won’t exhaust myself to compete and achieve something – or as they say: make your dreams come true – over my friends’ share of challenges and obstacles, their failure to turn their dreams into reality, was not at all a perspective that motivated me in my life. My obligation, which is essentially a feeling of solidarity, with my fellow men was of paramount importance to me and their dreams became my dreams, their failures my failures. Complicated? Hard to believe? Believe it.

To put it a little more elaborately: I mean do I have to experience the world in the way I have been told? It helps, maybe, but what helps more is your own instinct to achieve miniature victories in the pursuit of your dreams. Therefore, for me, it was enough to say that ‘talent’ is the only way to go forward, ‘genius’ isn’t; for genius is made and talent is inborn. If both this stuff doesn’t make their presence felt then ‘persistence,’ ‘determination,’ and ‘imagination’ are some of the other bona fide sacred cows that can help you milk your dreams into reality. So press on, for this world is already so full of educated derelicts and just don’t throw in the towel to realize your dream.

Throughout the formative years of my school life, I shunned all that out of my mind to live my life freely without undue fears and anxieties of unholy competition that nag you no end. I thought keeping those haranguing lectures of the chaotic market space of entrance exams, competitive exams, and what not at bay will be well worth it than to subject myself to the mental suffering that would know no joy, no life.

I was happy with my pond life; life’s adventures across the seven seas were for the derring-do heroes: complicated career-building predators whose hunts for a name, fame, money, and the kind of privileges that their life could afford in an alien land was certainly not my cup of tea. If life is all about going to a distant (mostly western) land to seek easy glories of unworthy money and alien privileges, I better not seek it. To sum it up I'd say: They have all the lives they will never live back home.

Tuning in to western music, nursing a beverage or two at a socially provincial gathering/party or regularly having inspired western-sounding names like Josh, Natasha, or at the most Nina for their little ballerinas, Little Singhams, Pikachus, Shin Chans, and Power Rangers echo the re-imagined life that they will willingly want to live – far away from the motherland (of tropical climes of mango pickles for lunch, curd for the night and the mandibular mastication of paan and gutkha as evening snacks!), not to mention the deeply entrenched local habits and values of their oddly amusing brothers, sisters and cousins and their idiosyncratic bondage to their elderly parents having their own sweet agenda of clipping your life into using two-wheelers for taking ration or at the most a small car for commuting to a distant place of worship, a temple! Such a sweet almost spiritual life no longer appeals to them. What appeals to them is the radical new possibility to live their life out of the country of origin in a land that is far more economically advanced, glamorous, and attractive than the plain consciousness of an ordinary Indian way of life can offer.

No more of the sadhus, sants, and sanyasis of the erstwhile socialist ‘non-aligned’ country; new chips, rather kids on the block want their newly acquired scientific tempers to blow the trumpet of their success and achievement to the biased, materialistic world. Boy am I glad I didn't do any of that.

"For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause:”
- Hamlet, William Shakespeare

For most schoolmates, career-building was like rock-and-roll stuff; stringing its electric guitars or bajowing the tabla of attention-seeking behaviour to one's preeminent advantage happened to be their innate forte: a theatrically showy deal that is done with a mindset I thought so rude that it will make you give them and their non-existent friendship the ax.

For me, however, it was just not more than a humble Sitar-vadan which took its own sweet time to reach, if at all, a crescendo of sorts: a final marker for my laid-back efforts towards a career-building activity, and when it finally did kick in, I mean the crescendo, I was better off left to my good offices to carve a niche for my own sake in a post-financial liberalized economic world that was increasingly opening up for new-age competitors (read career contenders) jostling like unleashed cow-herds to make hay while the sun still shone. They used to say unanimously “Wherever it sticks, Howlay!” I think their motto to excel in life couldn’t get any better than the words used for their so-called ambitious enterprises.

Back in the day as a student at the central school, the term ‘Howlay’ (\hau-lay\, meaning fool/stupid) was considered indecent or low-class to use. (Maybe, it still is). But sometimes, whenever necessary, in order to drive someone up the wall or wanting to playfully piss off someone we indulged in using such a slang language to drive home a point or two! That was fun though.

‘Howlay’ was perhaps slightly ear-friendly than the less appealing word ‘Howla’ which sort of sounded inelegant and garish and so it was used but sparingly. Indeed, it used to be a great deal of fun whenever someone among us had to shout out loud such prickly lingo in the fond hope of pulling someone’s leg (lankier the better) or crack a joke (quirkier the better) or just for laughs and giggles. No doubt, our teachers considered them as derogatory as, say, shouting or talking too much or too noisily (and even nosily!) in class (or gamely utilizing someone’s ‘lost-and-found’ PT shoe instead of a proper ball to play football with often at the back of our large high-ceilinged breezy classroom). So, obviously, our teachers did not approve of our playfully using such ‘tasteless terminology’ for language expression, which for the "greater common good" must not be practiced at any cost.

Medicine Was Not For Me

My morally compelling picayune conscience sat as a heavyweight feather upon my soul for the longest time that I can remember. People give an arm or a leg to do medicine or engineering whereas I had to afford an exorbitant price for just, as it's been said, ‘a mouthful of the sky’ that never accommodated 'engineering' as a career option in the scheme of things. Rather hoping to take up medicine was my only way of revolting against the established norm per se of preferring to do an escapist engineering degree for a qualifying career.

Good on me, I guess because I don’t know if I could have made it through the traditional wagers of conventionality and conformity of doing engineering that goes on to satisfy other peoples’ expectations of you rather than your own. Such a career choice almost always resulted in some mechanical and electronic lifestyle I absolutely was not attuned to leading. I despised being an engineer at all costs possible. However, getting down on the mat to do medical science was a nebulous day-dreaming activity I thought was worth partaking solo, without troubling anyone about how passionate I was to pursue it.

I do admit it was a huge rock of risk for not having followed in the general direction of the cow-herd, of which my debonair school chaps were so flatteringly proud to be a part of; they wanted to become engineers at all costs possible. Others like me with softy dens of delicate souls and happiness had a different sense of career fulfillment. So I did what I could do best. But I too ended up becoming an engineering snob (of course, never been a show-off big-talker about that thing) after all (in computer software), albeit in a sort of way that IT geeks/nerds/techies call themselves as the new breed of software engineers. Yeah yeah, I know, so much for my cock-a-snook and holier-than-thou battles that I had so blatantly waged with the fine school guys who went on to become…what?...piteous Engineers?...with the kind exception of a couple of them passing out of medical schools to become medical professionals, at least.

I say chaps: that’s a good herd mentality or crowd wisdom of cooperative thinking there that I should have been a part of right from the start. But, on second thoughts, no, I beg to differ on that style of reasoning and functioning and I am thankful to myself I wasn’t one amongst your group. Had I been one, it would have been really more regrettable or been similar to being boiled alive in oil or something!

For you fabulous guys though, I guess it handsomely pays to be in a cow-herd and follow its attendant diktats as opposed, fairly and squarely, to seeking the life-changing opportunity to be a solitary reaper heading out on a road less travelled by. That’s just the thing I have a soft spot for, and goodness, it was really a unique something that had stuck with me through thick and thin as being able to handle the good times as well as the bad times with much alacrity.

So Medicine Was Ruled Out, Forever

The sight of blood, gore, and the stench of vomit, etc. were simply too much for this dilettantish type to bear with a sense of astute professionalism, so to speak. Accordingly, Medicine was ruled out pronto. I suppose when you’ve got a coy personality like the one I used to have once upon a time I probably will, as I’ve come to realize now, derive no sense of professional or personal gratification from pursuing the noble field of medical practice. Do hesitant or coy persons have less chance of pursuing a career in medicine? Enlighten me.

The sight of a dead rat on the courtyard or a mashed-up cockroach in the toilet or an upended frog by the creek or a hurt bleeding lizard on a boulder would always result in a terrible loss of appetite for several days, even months together. Maybe, had I been even a slightly more obsessive about doing medicine, I figure, I would have – with my bust appetite whatsoever stopped taking food and continued living on fluids, for life – become an MBBS doctor. I am hardly exaggerating; it’s the truth and nothing but the truth I am hard-wired to speak.

While this is not something to suggest against taking up a career in medicine to become a medical practitioner, not at all, far from it, it is merely but an avalanche of, shall I say, half-baked thought processes – albeit childish! – of a seemingly capable Doubting Thomas who didn’t try to go the extra mile to achieve his childhood (and later youth) dream via the tutorial factories of his beloved country.

Having said that, the world, I am certain, is definitely not all the poorer if I hadn’t made a decent attempt to become a doctor of medicine. What dreams may come? Trust me it’s definitely better off, without me as a doctor. Amen to that.

By Arindam Moulick

Postscript: The above essay is the second sequel (part 3) to the main essay titled "That Good Old-Fashioned Existential Angst" published in November 2018 on my blog site Pebbles on the Beach. More on this 'dream' theme in my next blog. 

Click here to read the first sequel (part 2) titled "A Dream That Will Never Come True" published in December 2018.

Click here to read the main essay (part 1) titled "That Good Old-Fashioned Existential Angst" published in November 2018.