Sunday, June 21, 2009

Innocence


When it came up in conversation the other day, I could not help but explore an individual’s perception of the word innocence. Discussing it with friends brought up some different aspects to mind. It seems we use it as an adjective quite often and yet almost universally when it may not apply.

Trustworthiness is innocence?

Inexperience is innocence?

Stupidity is innocence?

Honesty is innocence?

When it comes to looks, infants are often referred to having an innocent look. Are we referring to their inability to scam us? fool us? or simply saying that they look nice. Even in grown-ups, a subtle natural physical beauty can be related to innocence. The trust we pour into a stranger, how personable the stranger is, is partially based off our perception of their innocence amongst other things.

When somebody isn’t as knowledgeable as us about a certain topic, their lack of exposure is sometimes considered as their innocence. The fact that after so many years they never came across something very naïve must be because they lead an innocent life. All of a sudden, you find yourself in a position of corrupting them. Corrupting not in terms of making them dishonest but simply exposing them to a life perhaps unacceptable in their past. Providing exposure to a soul is simply allowing them to live and define their own life instead of letting them follow one sketched out for them.

As a good friend pointed out, people living the been there, done that lifestyle have often had a lot of exposure to the troubles of life and carry lower expectations from their future. Innocent people live in an ideal world expecting everything to work out perfect. Sometimes I feel is it the jaded ones that make it far and high in life whereas the innocent ones are left behind. Then again, life today is such fast paced and full of diversity, unless you have spent your entire life in a remote village, you cannot remain innocent (of any kind).

I guess all the aforementioned forms are personality traits of an innocent human. Please search for them in self and preserve the ones that can be preserved. You may not be naïve or inexperienced any more, however, never lose the trustworthiness and honesty. Leaving you with a lovely song; Comments, feedback, suggestions welcome.

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...

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