Society you are a crazy breed
I hope you are not lonely without me…
Society have mercy on me
I hope you are not angry if I disagree.
This is an extract from the song “Society” by Eddie Vedder which featured in the movie “Into the Wild”. The movie raises some really painful and direct questions on the very notion of today’s society.
What is a society? What does it stand for? Why does it hold such importance these days? We will here try to analyze each of these questions one by one.
Society is usually considered as a group of people who form the basic environment around you, who have gathered together generally because of geographical proximity, some common interests, religious synchronization and most importantly in a country like India, to influence the mental well being of individuals by telling us what to expect from oneself and the society at large.
As time stands today, the importance of a society to an individual in this age of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter cannot be over emphasized. All of us, somewhere along the line, want to fit into a circle of people, to be seen with them and laugh on those who don’t fit into that checklist even if it means sacrificing your own individual identity.
An example that reinforces this point is of a former PG mate of mine, who I shall not name for obvious reasons. He used to listen to Hindi songs of different period and even some songs in his own dialect. When he came to PG, naturally his songs didn’t find any takers and he was considered an “outsider” and not a part of that group. So then, just to fit into that so called “Normal group”, he deleted all the songs he used to listen to earlier and just cut-copied all the songs from their mobiles and started listening to them without even knowing what they meant or whether he liked them or not. The last I heard from that friend, he has shifted into a flat with those very people.
Society today in a country as India, works like the blinker on the eye of the Horse- keeping the individuals concentrated on the pre-determined path ahead, making us run life-long in the pursuit of that carrot shaped happiness that seems like a mirage the closer we get to it. It is this mad running which has made the us, the humans impervious to all the good things in life.
That “4 Log” to which our parents and teachers keep referring to time and again were nowhere seen, haven’t been yet seen and most likely will not be seen in the future time scale, yet their perpetual existence has become an integral part of our society.
What a society we all have created, wherein we all are connected but alone, where a Homo Sapien is working his butt off to fit into a structure created by another Homo Sapien, passing interviews, learning English at British Council to fit into that “Intellectual well speaking group”. These Societal conformations and compliances have taken the zeal and risk taking ability away from most of us. We are constantly told to look for that safer option. Is this how life for humans was intended to be?
You go to any event, any party and take any 10 people. You will find that at least 4-6 of them are playing with their cute little phones, chatting, not knowing who is sitting next to them. In this regard, Albert Einstein famously said – “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”
The day, it seems, has arrived my friends.
I believed society was built on the principle of you watch my back, I will watch yours. You help me, I will help you. But thanks to our relentless efforts, it has transformed to – I have my eye on you. Fall back and I will push you further. It’s time we change that. There is an urgent requirement to make society a place for real human interaction, where it’s okay to have a different opinion and most importantly where one is not looking for the safer option prescribed by “4log”, instead one takes the road less travelled.
