Sunday, June 7, 2009

Unconventionality

Depending on your background, upbringing, religion and culture a life has been described for you. This life is being lived by your parents, distant family and others with a similar background. Let us term this: The Conventional. Today’s entry is to prompt a comfort level with what we commonly end up recognizing as the Unconventional.

For those in their twenties, we have been exposed to a generation gap driven wide by rapidly changing technology and a world that is smaller than ever before. Our exposure of the world surpasses any experience the generation before us has had living it. Even though they notice the same diversity in cultures and religions today, they have passed the age where they could incorporate it in their lifestyle. The Conventional choices get pretty set in stone after a certain age. They look at life from a certain view point. The experiences of their generation allow them to pour their unbiased trust more often than not only in people from their own cast and religion.

The ever wired life on the internet, the increased diversity by people migrating all over the world, the social addiction of Facebook has caused major interactions between people with different backgrounds. I urge you to view somebody else with an open mind set before dismissing their lifestyle as unconventional. I request you to put yourself in an uncomfortable position, outside your territory of similar peers; it will make you strong, well rounded and truly global.

Making acquaintances through common friends, trusting individuals rather than their background, reading scriptures from a religion other than your own, going for the unexpected such as a dance, an adventure or an event which you usually wouldn’t attend are all minute gestures that will incorporate a different culture in your life and help you define a life for yourself. God gave us humans the ability to reason, our parents trained that ability and developed our keen sense of judgment; it is time we use that ability and define our own set of The Conventional.

The next time you find yourself dismissing a friend’s choices as wrong, put yourself in their shoes and give an extra minute to think whether it’s something worth trying yourself :). Comments, rebuttals, feedback welcome as always. This is certainly a topic that needs discussion to be truly explored. A shout out to Tanu... For prompting my thoughts on Unconventionality...

8 comments:

  1. i love reading ur blog...dis 1 is d best after ur mohit--mo post!!

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  2. Thanks so much dear... How many best you got ;)... You just called the previous one as the best :P... :)

    I love writing for you... Send me suggestions about what you'd like me to write about... Anything :)

    Bhai

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  3. I absolutely loved your views about trying unconventionality. And for the first time, I have nothing to disagree upon. In fact, you have caused one of the major changes in my life by changing my rigid views.

    As they say, if you are stuck in your own small world, you will never realize how beautiful and exciting life could be on the other side. And I thank you for making me realize this...and ever since then, life has been unconventionally beautiful. Hope that you continue to be a positive and refreshing change in my life forever.


    Love,
    Tanu....

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  4. I did realised it a while back..especially when I went for a GIG of a Mad band (which is quite a wave since their 35 years journey) and felt awesome to learn and to experience their cult feautures..
    Dont know if its Unconventional.. but it is definitely beyond onez comfort & familiar zone!

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  5. Am glad you were able to witness something out of the box... I hope you have no regrets doing so and have continued to test the social limits since then...

    Thanks for the comment...

    Mo

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  6. First, I must say I enjoyed reading ur blog. Ur amazing mimo.

    My thoughts...

    Given your background, generation gap, and desire for unconventionality, how is it possible to not challenge past generation's views on dating, love, and marriage outside one's culture? If it is one who defines oneself, why does at the end of the day that which is accepted by culture becomes acceptable to us (by de facto)?

    Last, going to a dance, an adventure, or an event does not translate into becoming unconventional... Unconventional can also be accepting, tolerating, or reasoning why do other ppl do what they do and how they do it... I guess just to embrace a change, a new perspective...

    PA.

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  7. Dearest Anon,

    Thank you for the comment... I understand when you question whether I am truly challenging self in accepting unconventionality. I'd like to clarify, the article is to prompt people to be comfortable to exposing themselves to the Unconventional.

    Simply because something is unconventional doesn't mean it always has to be accepted as your own. Looking at the example you mentioned. Dating, loving and marrying outside one's culture is very acceptable, and surely unconventional. However, in certain cultures, it also carries the burden of bringing some very close people on the same page. This is something that cannot be achieved by individual effort but rather an effort on part of everyone involved in such an arrangement.

    For example, In my culture, It is a marriage between families and not really two individuals. This is not to say that if I were to fall in love with, say, YOU (am assuming you are not from my culture, not sure why)... i wouldn't take all possible efforts to bring happiness to all...

    Such an unconventional acceptance will truly judge my morals however, and perhaps put me out of my comfort zone. Just stressing, that am OkAy with it.

    Love the idea of tolerance and reasoning being forms of unconventional... More people should live life based off reasoning... If they can convince themselves, they can convince somebody else.

    Thanks again,
    Happy Blogging,
    Love, Mo

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