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By Tinky Ningombam
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds.”
~ Bob Marley
One and only one thing differentiates you from the rest of the other people in the world that we have chanced to live upon today and that is your MIND. While it is easy to be swayed and to follow a popular crowd, it becomes equally hard to stand for something against someone/ something powerful. And as people’s attentions are being pushed or pulled to different issues, causes, actions or reactions, we find our-self stuck in the quagmire of multiple choices. Are we as human beings not capable of truly being masters of our mind? Do we have biases, second thoughts, insecurities of the convictions that we have? Do we constantly need reasoning from a higher authority to believe in something?
Just like a baby who first learns ways of life looking and following his/her parents in the initial stages of his/her life, a classic thought or a belief is passed down by generations of practitioners and evangelists and then absorbed and implemented. While this is right for the time when one learns how to grapple with his/her life, but when one reaches maturity, most of us try to pursue individual thoughts and create our individual sense of “right” and “wrong”, roughly called personal values. But do we know how to differentiate between right and wrong is what we should ask ourself. This brings in the ever-eluding question of the power of free choice. Do we or do we not have it? Who influences us and moulds our thoughts? Do we really control our own fate and decisions? Free Will and Predestination theories of Classical philosophers can be a right context to consider the mortal inability of a man to act on anything in isolation.
And in this complexity, there yet exist the select “Free Minds” that speak for themselves and act on their own will. They are the ones that don’t tolerate injustice. They are the innovators, the real reformers, ones that lead the pack. But a free mind has been fabled as dangerous, as too spirited and too questioning. History has always brandished free thinkers as rebellious, as non-conformists. Spartacus, Galileo, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela… what were they if not rebels for a cause? But as we tread along through years and years within this human power struggle, we have been told to live in conformity in lieu of a civilized and dignified society adhering to man’s laws. But what has become of it, as we see, are the people who have left it on others to decide their fate. And these decisions made in favor of those in power. Even this was accepted for the little that was asked in return, just a peaceful life, even if a bonded one. Men have always been good with compromise.
We see today evil in many colors, horrific crimes, dirty politics and filth in the streets, but we wait for someone to clean it for us? Some think it will miraculously stop so we can go on with our normal lives. And injustice doesn’t matter, nor lives as long as they are not ours. We are happy when people hide everything in the closet. We do not want to see the dirty and sad world. We didn’t pay for that, did we? And then we ask ourselves in between the bouts of unrest, where has our humanity gone? Where is the sense of righteous law? We forget that we have struck a deal a long time ago. We have stopped thinking and have let other people to think for us. We believe someone else will come up with a solution, that someone else will find the answer. So we wait. The problem is this.
For every time we made a choice out of manipulations and without rational thinking, we have added to this society’s ills. For every time that we have heard one side of the story and formed a haste opinion, we have done injustice to the ones who are oppressed. Who controls your mind? Do you or does someone else? How long do we wait to have an independent mind? A mind that is free of agenda. A mind that can think and act on its own. How long before our minds actually start to matter?
(The columnist condemns the molestation incident of Ms. Khagenbam. People of the state, esp. women of all communities and creed need to speak up for the victim’s right to a fair trial of the perpetrators involved in the act. All anti-social forms of protests are against public interest and should be strongly discouraged.)
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