Passionate for "Passions"

Hardly any day goes by, that we - "the people" - do not feel disillusioned, frustrated with lives and that we deserve "something" better. A better job, a bigger car/house/****, better body , better interests (some for self, others more so for our partners), but nothing more so than a better image of self (not self-image, i dare say). And with in this, lies the first fallacy of our lives. Fallacy in that we always manage to find the wrong tree to bark at and then pathetically try to define our successes through these. That we are passionate about passions and not about self.

That the wants of this world are all fantasies, as glittering they might seem, are so because that's all they are - just glitter - a topping, a garnish, an added flavor to our elixirs, our "self" which should truly define us. At the risk of generalizing things, we don't see people fantasizing about being a great person, achieving something great or being better for the sake of being better, but more so for the effect of it. The effect that it shall have on others, more than the self.

Although doomed from the beginning, we then try to balance it by bringing a whole different angle to the story. By adding another "non-positive" to make it "non-negative". As Jack Nicholson's character says to Helen hunt's " You make me wanna be a better man" - No fault in that. One needs to find his/her inspiration, but that we resort to looking outward, searching for a "muse" at the onset is where the problem lies. That we lack the self-belief, the confidence of looking inwards. Jack didn't say " I make myself want to be a better man", he needed a "you" to make it real and well make it sound romantic too. Just an "I" would have made him sound more "egoistic". What's wrong in loving thyself if it makes you a better person, but we abhor it, no we detest it. But actually we are afraid of it. Of the fact, that man is not really a "social animal", that we use being social as a excuse for being "better" than other animals.

Its this perverse nature of ours, the "need" to find someone or something else to "complete" us, as if the other part of our life's equation is all that we need to invigorate, to kick-start the reaction, to get our act together and become our fantasies. Perverse, because not only do we doom ourselves by choosing others over self, but we burden the rest of the universe, GOD, our partner, our parents, our boss and everyone else with the frustration of not achieving and more often than not, with the frustration of having achieved these fantasies.

As given our deprecated old selves, the peripheral nature of these wants is revealed only by achieving it. Be it a car, a job, bigger paycheck, a "better" partner - it all ceases to be better once you end up achieving it. And then to fill the vacuum, the "purpose", the "need of an inspiration" to keep going, we find ourselves another destination. As if we need to go somewhere, to be someone else to find our true passions.

But maybe that's where I've got it wrong. Maybe "others" are a medium to discover "self", maybe a muse is all it takes to reveal the true creativity within yourself. Maybe all a "Hussain" needs is a Madhuri. And maybe this works in being a conduit to making things better.

But isn't this exactly what makes us dream about a "higher purpose for life", that we need to look up for a Higher force, not always of the spiritual kind. That we need to look up for a "Hero" to save ourselves, that we need someone else to define our "self"s.

We keep on waiting for our passions to reveal themselves, through their own prerogative or through "others". And the first passion that we'll have to humor is of "Waiting" on others. And "Waiting" and "Wanting" become synonymous but never complimentary. And if ever were we to discover a want and achieve it, we wait again for it to corrupt itself, for a passion to become a norm, for a hero to become an "anti-hero". For a "Mahatma" to become "Gandhi", for a "Hero" to become a dictator, for the loves to be loathed.

When all it needs is for us to be passionate about self, passionate about finding ourselves within.
As Chad Kroeger croons:

"And they say that a hero can save us
I'm not gonna stand here and wait"

maybe he's got it figured out.....