How good is good?

          What is the definition of good? There are as many as 44 definitions of the word 'good' in dictionary. But one of the most common definition of the word good is to do with something desirable, suitable etc. Talking of 'good' in this context leads me to think that the idea of good is highly relative in most cases and is often based on perceptions than on real facts. Even if we find something to be supposedly good, something better always shows up. In my opinion even something best doesn't remain best forever. For example, iPhone 2G was 'good' and soon was replaced by iPhone 3G then by 3GS and then iPhone 4. This is typically based on mass opinion, the sales of the product etc that it was easy to conclude the goodness of the product. 

          But talking about people - If there are some presidential candidates, each one of them are going to be good in their own way. But it is based on their actions that people are going to perceive them as good or bad. Something looks good till something better comes along. As a matter of fact when something better comes along even the 'good' looks close to ordinary. All this is fine as long as you are talking about a celebrity being good or better or even best. But when you are talking about interpersonal relationships. Good is often not good enough. Most people don't have a definition of good, which in my opinion would be highly idealistic; though I feel a fair idea of what one considers good makes sense. But there are additional factors which affect definition of good - previous experiences, situations, moods etc. So it is very human to overlook good and keep looking for better and best. When you fail to see 'good' how do you think you will find better and leave alone best. It is like - kissing several frogs to find a prince who probably doesn't even exist or who you just missed out constantly looking for better. Good is good enough as long as you are able to see through the goodness. 

          But coming back to how good is good. Well it completely depends on the person, their perception and opinion. Someone or something may look good to me, but may look really bad to you. So good has to do completely with how you look at something. Forget axiomatic and absolute stuff, they don't exist all the time. But 'good' is a very relative term and there is no correct definition of the word in my opinion. I want to finish by saying that since 'good' is more of an opinion/perception, don't get carried away when someone calls you bad. You are good as long as you consider yourself good. Since for some people nothing is good enough, its ok for products to be constantly redesigned and remodeled for people to like them, but for humans, it is completely worthless to constantly change yourself to please someone who themselves are not good enough but consider you as being 'not good enough.' So it is completely sensible to be yourself and not giving importance to someone who doesn't deserve it. 

Audacity of being Yourself!

          Do you have the audacity to be yourself? Even if we really want to be ourselves, how many times are we actually able to do it? There is no denying the fact that often we have to wear a social mask in order to mingle with the society. But I have come to realize that a lot of times it is really the social mask that the society appreciates and cares about. The 'real' you, a 'frank' you is most likely to be rejected or mocked at. Most people fall in love with a perception of you and find it hard to replace the perception with reality when they do not match. Though this is not the case with everyone, I have come across a lot of people of this kind.

            Many of us do things we don’t want to do, act the way we don’t want to due to societal pressures and the fear of what others might think of us.  I think as long as it doesn’t intentionally hurt anyone, there is just nothing wrong in being yourself and doing what you like. What is the point in studying something or working a dissatisfactory job (exceptions are there of course) because it will make you look successful in the society? What is the point in marrying someone who is supposedly successful in the society or in their career but treat you like an object? What is the point in doing things which you hate but do only because it will make you look good in the society or amidst your family and friends? What is the point in following rituals and traditions which you hardly believe in, but do so to look like the perfect person who doesn’t give up their traditional values? You can always come up with excuses for these and some of these excuses could be genuinely issues. But for the most part these are mere excuses and you are not being true to yourself. I have always avoided being ashamed of any bad relationship that I have had or any mistake of mine, because I have learnt through experience that it is not really worth feeling bad about yourself based on other’s perspectives about you. A good friend used to say, don’t let someone run you through a guilt trip. Nobody is perfect and very few people have the audacity to accept that. Obviously you are bound to make mistakes, but isn’t that how life is, you make mistakes and learn from them. But of course being yourself does not mean that you never attempt to change anything about yourself. It is just that you don’t need to change yourself based on your assumptions about how people think of you. In my opinion I have learnt this from experience as well, that it is better to portray your true self to people than to later surprise them.

             But of course there is the flip side to this as well. Being myself has not done me good all the time. It has gotten me a lot of haters as well.  I have been called an egomaniac, arrogant, selfish etc etc. Not that I care about it. As a matter of fact, who is not selfish or don’t bother about their egos? How many of us are saints? And of course I don’t mean to say that I am completely perfect, but, atleast most of the time I have the satisfaction of having been myself. I have never gone around and intentionally attempted to hurt people or anything, in fact I have always showered people I really like with unconditional affection. However, I have my own limitations, my problems, my attitudes etc. And similarly I know what I am doing, what my responsibilities are, how I behave and my intentions as well. What is the point in trying to prove to people that you are not someone others have perceived you to be? If people cannot accept the person I am; I have learnt this over years in my life that it really is their problem not mine. You can please others only so much. In the name of love or affection or respect, we could attempt to please others, not that it is wrong, but in the end who are you trying to fool? Yourself, isn’t it? Truth is whether you like it or not, society and people around you love only the social masks and those who actually like the 'real' you, never make you feel that you need a social mask. Have the audacity to be yourself, even if many do not want to face the real ‘you’ most of the time.

Feminism and Female Chauvinism

               There is a fine line of difference between feminism and female chauvinism. Feminism is what suffragists basically work for - parity of genders, equality between men and women i.e.  equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for men and women. Meanwhile female chauvinism is very similar to male chauvinism, i.e. excessive and blind patriotism towards female community and rights, undue partiality or attachment to female community and finally an attitude of superiority towards men. But it is very easy to get confused between both these concepts. A feminist need not be a female chauvinist and a female chauvinist could very well be nuts. In my opinion, in a country like US, feminism for the most part has gradually gone on to become female chauvinism. This is not really surprising considering the independence people have and comparatively individualistic society. 

             However, in a country like India, there has been a rise in suffragists advocating and fighting for women rights. Yet, here, there is still a male dominance in the society and female chauvinism is not likely to be witnessed much. But there are people who do not clearly understand the difference between feminism and female chauvinism and conveniently assume that feminists are/likely to become female chauvinists. A movie like 'Fire' very well portrayed female chauvinism. However, that is not as common in India as yet as it is in Western countries. But here, feminism itself is seen with negative eyes. The moment you call yourself a feminist, you are looked upon as a female who has no family values and who does not respect tradition and in short, you are not a typical woman who will give up certain things for the so-called sake of family. Though younger generation definitely is getting better in treating women. Yet, female equality still has problems to face. As an example lets take an IT organization where a female gets promoted sooner than other peers. Even if the female is a geek, chances are really high that the women is going to be called arrogant, overbearing, bootlicker and has asskissed her way up. All this, just because men find it difficult to accept that a woman has just shown that she is capable of getting a promotion sooner than her peers by means of hardwork. Similarly, I read on another blog which talks about history and how hindu women were treated back in olden days according to so - called Manu Smruti and other such books or whatever. A religious leader with whom the author of that blog had interacted in person multiple times has been quoted saying that if women are allowed more reservations and more freedom, it would be the beginning of chaos and destruction and women would become uncontrollable. Again I am not surprised. I have heard more than a million times from different men that women should not be given equal rights. First off, in my opinion this just goes to show how much of freaks such men are as they are scared they may lose their self assumed powerful positions in the society. There is no denying the fact that things with respect to parity between men and women are changing. Yet certain aspects of it are yet to change. As I had talked about in another post of mine that women themselves let other women down in several scenarios. 

             Coming back to feminism and female chauvinism. I think female chauvinism gets triggered when there is excessive male chauvinism. After all we are all human beings. But feminists being misunderstood to be female chauvinists is completely unfair. Is it wrong if a woman prefers to be herself, prefers to have her own identity and not to change her identity after a so-called marriage, prefers to have dreams, goals, ambitions and to work towards them, prefers to be treated fairly. Feminists advocate equality of men and women not superiority of women over men. But I feel that society puts more and more pressure on feminists and they feel compelled to turn towards female chauvinism. I mean if for a woman, standing up for herself against atrocities and retaliating back is going to considered female chauvinism, which by the way it is really not, then women are better off being female chauvinists. If on a social network profile, I were to put that I am a feminist, all I would mean is that I want to be treated equally as a human being and that I don't want to beg for rights from men, I just want to take them anyways. Feminists do not aim at putting men down, but they like to live their lives as they want of course keeping in mind their responsibilities just like men. Feminists do not want to be treated inferior because of being women. I want to end this post with just this much. I can go on and on on this topic and I do have the audacity to write much more with respect to how annoyed I feel about being an Indian woman, but I would like to reserve that for another separate post. 

New Year - New Beginning

New Year marks a new beginning and we should give up all old sorrows, worries and look forward to the new days coming up. As for me, last year began in the worst possible way and on new year, I wrote a pretty apologetic post. The beginning of the year was pretty much a mess. Well it is fair enough to say that my life has been a mess more than once, but I manage to have everything in control, for the most part ;). As the year proceeded, several events took place...moving to CA, quitting my job, getting back to India, getting a new pinky vaio, an ipad :D etc etc..phew!!!...Nevertheless, once I was back home, I believe things started improving and I think that's what happens when you are around family :). There were tons of things on the back of my mind, lots of pressures, feeling of being in a deadlock, but thanks to my parents, brother, bff, and all my other friends who understood me and did not get mad at my isolating myself and building a wall around myself, I have been able to and I am still managing to fight my emotional setbacks.I must say, it has been one hell of a year, a lot of laughter, tons of tears, tense days, hectic days, but all is well in the end. Having said that, I hope the new year brings joy and peace to not just myself, but to everyone on planet earth. So...my resolutions for the new year - well, I have not really thought of any big time resolution except to keep my life more organized and disciplined. There is one thing to definitely look forward to this year - admits to universities and flying back to the US. Apart from that, things would keep happening, lets see what is in store. So here is wishing everyone a happy new year again...lets look put our pasts behind us and look forward to better tomorrows. And as several of my friends tell me - keep smiling, it is very important. :)

The 'Hate' Word

Before I begin to write, I affirm that I am going to proofread my post again before publishing. I have done it for some posts and for some I haven't. Nevertheless when I happen to read any of my post and find any small error, I 'hate' it. So hate is what I am going to talk about on this post. Oh by the way, I am not well today and am typing this on my iPad. I went to a doctor sometime back and much to my dismay, he gave me an injection and my immediate thought - I hate injections, I hate falling ill. Soon after the thought, I remembered something my friend Ed used to tell me, back during Deloitte Days. Anytime I would say hate, he would say, "don't use the 'hate' word, use something more subtle like dislike." He would follow that with,"Hate is a very strong word, it doesn't allow you to let-go of something you are trying to cling on to knowingly or unknowingly. Hate is as strong an emotion as love and using the word would mean that you are still being emotionally attached to a certain thing you claim to be hating."

Needless to say, I have not given up using the word completely, but when I do use it, I remember what he said. Considering that lately I 'hate' a lot of people, I attempt to replace the hate word with dislike. This has actually led me into thinking about long term memory and emotional attachment. I have seen people including me having a lot of hatred and grudge for some people and things. In very simple words, I guess it is fair enough to say that these people are unable to both forget and to forgive. So unconsciously they remain attached to these things they supposedly hate and find it impossible to forget the reasons for the hatred in the first place. I personally would like to research more on this topic. But nevertheless for the purposes of this post, I would say, it is worth giving a shot -replacing hate with something more subtle.

The Other!

On my blog, so far, I have never posted anything that didn't come straight out of my head. But today for a change, I want to paste, something which came out of my memory. Paulo Coelho is one of my favorite authors. The following a story I have taken directly from his book - " By the River Piedra I sat down and wept". Significance of the story? I keep getting reminded of this story every time I feel overwhelmingly anxious about things I am not doing or not doing right. Nevertheless here it is...

A man runs into an old friend who had somehow never been able to make it in life. "I should give him some money," he thinks. But instead he learns that his old friend has grown rich and is actually seeking him out to repay the debts he had run up over the years. They go to a bar they used to frequent together, and the friend buys drinks for everyone there. When they ask him how he became so successful, he answers that until only a few days ago, he had been living the role of the "Other."

"What is the Other?" they ask.

"The Other is the one who taught me what I should be like, but not what I am. The Other believes that it is our obligation to spend our entire life thinking about how to get our hands on as much money as possible so that we will not die of hunger when we are old. So we think so much about money and our plans for acquiring it that we discover we are alive only when our days on earth are practically done. And then it's too late."

"And you? Who are you?"

"I am just like everyone else who listens to their heart: a person who is enchanted by the mystery of life. Who is open to miracles, who experiences joy and enthusiasm for what they do. It's just that the Other, afraid of disappointment, kept me from taking action."

"But there is suffering in life," one of the listeners said.

"And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without ever even knowing what you're fighting for."

"That's it?" another listener asked.

"Yes, that's it. When I learned this, I resolved to become the person I had always wanted to be. The Other stood there in the corner of my room, watching me, but I will never let the Other into myself again even though it has already tried to frighten me, warning me that it's risky not to think about the future. From the moment that I ousted the Other from my life, the Divine Energy began to perform its miracles."

The greatest enemy of a woman is another woman!

There is a saying in Tamil which when translated goes like this - "A woman's enemy is another woman". So very true...I was watching the usual talk show Neeya Naana the other day. The debate was between feminists and women against feminism. It was a pretty hot debate with women on both sides screaming. Surprisingly more noise came from the non-suffragist side. They portrayed the part of the society which I hate the most. Before I proceed, I have to make it clear that I am a big time feminist and a proponent of men-women equality. I also want to put a little disclaimer here - Most of what I am writing in this blog post would perfectly fit Indian society, culture,women and might/ might not be suitable with respect to women of other countries, cultures etc mostly because of my limited knowledge of the lives and statuses of women in other countries. So getting back to where I was. The women against feminism reminded me of most women in our society who in my opinion are the biggest enemies of other women. These women are advocates of family and children are more important than self for a woman. Women should cater to the needs of husbands and family and should make that their priority. According them women should almost have no dreams and aspirations except those which do not come as a hindrance to their family or husband or even parents' wishes in some cases and that they should go ahead to fulfill these dreams when their families or husbands allow them to. In their opinion, sacrifice, adjustment, compromise are trademarks of women and define who women are. These women themselves have been brought up by their parents constantly telling them that they are girls and that they should be ready to make sacrifices and should consider everything but themselves more important than themselves and that men are gods on earth etc. And these women carry the legacy forward by passing them forward to their daughters. The kind I am mentioning here includes not only downtrodden and uneducated women but also women from some well-off and educated families. In the eyes of these women, feminism is a disgrace to women community. They fail to understand that it is because of feminists that their conditions in society have improved atleast a little. It is very easy to portray feminist women as the kind who just give up their families and bring disgrace to their families instead and that these women way more than ultra modern women who could give up anything even their own dignity to do anything. Even as I write this, I am made with rage. Feminists only advocate something which is going to bring equality to all. But the non-feminist women ruin not just their own lives, but the lives of other women as well. A 'good woman' in our society is one who can is the epitome of self sacrifice, who doesn't do anything against the wish of her family, who agrees and even advocates that men are superior and better, who talks, acts, dresses up in a manner approved by the society, family etc. Non- feminists make sure they fall into the category of 'good woman' and are more concerned about how society looks at them. While feminists care more about what they feel is right and fair enough, this does not mean that they bring a disgrace to everyone or that they are incapable of care and affection towards family and friends or that their intentions are only to insult the society. Feminists prefer to be themselves as opposed to being something other want them to be. Anyways, the whole point about women being enemies of women is close to indisputable. Non - feminist women who keep advocating directly or indirectly that men are better are enemies of women, mother-in-laws who think their daughter in laws are witches who snatch away their sons from them are enemies of women, women who because of jealousy or any other reason talk as badly as possible about other women are enemies of women, women who keep emotionally instilling a sort of guilt in other women of being not- good when they do not completely follow society's so called norms are enemies of women. As much as many men try to suppress women, in my opinion, more than that, it is some women who suppress other women. Why should a woman be another woman's enemy, aren't they supposed to support each other? Aren't they supposed to stand united for the equality of men and women?