When “You” become “He”
I recently tweeted
(@ahdchem) that “I am becoming a coffee dumping bin” and after a few days also
as “Coffee is my new red wine”. A curious follower asked what sort of coffee?
what he means is, it’s a long black, flat white, espresso or anything out of
blue and importantly why? That might look trivial at first sight, but when you
have a close look, that is a serious question. I am drinking coffee because I
like it or influenced by someone or else the very culture of drinking coffee?
The answer is partly all.
So the larger question here
is how much we are influenced by others (or by a culture or trend). I think to
an extent, what we are is not
because of what are we, but because of what others are. And again, how much we
are what we are not and how much we are not, what we are? I am not talking
about the famous disguise “the wolf in sheep's clothing” thing here. But how much of
true sense of ourselves retained in us over time and how much we polish it or
tarnish it in order to be part of the larger community and not being truly what
we otherwise be. Singularly, we become a third person to ourselves as we are
being dictated by someone outside us and we too listen to it. Whenever you feel as if all
or part of what you do is not your real actions but just a masquerade, then you
are reading the right thing and I am sure most of you will agree here.
I know it’s not a
heinous crime to secretly borrow or rob a character and use it on our template.
I am trying here to clearly see that, are we what because of solely what are we
or what others around us are. Hypothetically, we imagine and see things clearly through the eyes of
someone else or from somewhere else than through our own. Here we become a
character to ourself and we are more confident on that character than on
ourself.
I won’t talk
here why we are doing this, since it’s more complex for me to deal with it. But
I will take the help of Kelman’s conformity theory say in simple terms, how we
adopt this. There are three broad characteristics, firstly, in public we accept
the views of the majority but in private we maintain your own ideas. Second
category is that, We Agree to the ideas of the group and you
respect them. This may not be permanent as the group changes your ideas will
change. Last category is that: A true conversion which last over time and even
when group members change. But I doubt that the last one ever exists, as atleast
at some point of time, in seconds, in hours, in days or in years definitely we
should be influenced by someone.
So ok, what’s a
big deal now when we get influenced by an external factor and shape ourselves
for good? Well nothing wrong in it, but the true sense of individuality will go
missing over sometime and we will all end up in “cut-copy-paste” individuals. And
hence I vaguely reason why trends and culture exist and disappear over time.
How strong you
are as a person and your own originality depends upon comparing what you wanted
to do 10 years back and what you have done now. The degree of deviation from
your original interests and ambitions shows how much you are influenced by
external factors. (Though I don’t have solid foot on this statement, but I
vaguely believe that is what it is on my own experience). People argue that
there is an element called “necessity” in everyone’s life, which forces us in a
direction which is completely undesired. But if you argue with the “necessity”
element, you are not true to yourself and your deceived yourself on the long
run and therefore negatively influenced.
