I want to love myself more!

Life comes with it's contradictions, but no human age was ideologically so contradictory than ours. "Love yourself" or "Self Love" is the motto of this generation. And may I say, the drug, the ultimate opium. In this blog, let's talk about the economics of self love. 

Why do we want something? When we do not have it. Why we do not have love for ourselves. Because, from the beginning, from the time we are born, we are not the most spectacular thing around us. Human society assumes the existence of life and specially the existence of any single human being as given and tries to build an infrastructure of additional desires on it. Who are you? Just a human? Everyone here is a human! Be something else! Be something more! If you want to be human, be an empathetic one, be muscular, be manly or womanly and so on. Be a doctor, be a scientist, be an engineer, be an architect. 

Manufactured want

This creates a split in human which makes a wish to create a unique identity within the society. The want is manufactured inside our heads. The biggest artificial demand of our lives is ourselves. Then we go on a treasure hunt of finding what is already within us. 

Should I need to have a reason to love myself? 

Enlightenment, the age of reason taught us to question everything. Have an inquisitive approach to life. So, we like this way of questioning. Why we should respect ourselves? We do not have any objective reason for that. This kind of so called objective reasoning is the reason of our all miseries in our heads. We spend ourselves in our thoughts by this line of questioning. 

Thoughts spend you, you spend your thoughts. 

Through, this kind of dialectical approach to our selves, we get trapped in the capitalist trap of self love. Go to gym, Achieve something in life and blah blah and blah. We spend our thoughts days and nights either loathing ourselves or trying to love ourselves, but this love is fake. 

Why is it fake? 

Anything which comes with a cost of reason, cannot be authentic. Ever thought that the epistemology of reasoning is flawed. What I mean by this is that most of the knowledge is experience based. Reason is just a B grade justification of the same. Numerous times it has happened, that a scientific theory was proved wrong by some experiment and then a substitute theory with a substitute math was given to explain the same. Why don't we question at that point of time, that if we can have an equally good reasoning to explain something in two distinct ways, can we trust reasoning to reason about loving ourselves? 

Normative solution

I, like you, am trapped too. Why should you expect from me a solution? I, too should not. But, let's see if we can come up with something. I think, if you are trapped in the disease, you should enjoy your symptoms. And you should accept that you are not mentally healthy. If you feel yourself less physically, go to gym, if you feel intellectually less, go to library. Go everywhere the empty want to love yourself takes you. And overcome every insecurity you have. Let me jump to the end now. 

When you will overcome your all insecurities with full fury, you will get to know this matrix of self love. You will know, you loved yourself all along. You were always there for yourself when you felt less. You were the one who decided to work hard. So, this market of self validation will become short that day. 

You will exit market with buying some fake love for yourself. You will understand that anything from the market will create it's own demand further and anything that you need is already within you. 

My man! My girl! My dearest person reading this! 

Exit the market! Do not buy any product! 

The Dharmic Thought: Preface

Humanity today deals with a number of problems which demands a solution. And I have not increased any knowledge by starting from this point. The point however remains that this is indeed a truth. To count the problems that Human species face requires a very thorough categorization into different facets of human life. One such Categorization would be simple:  Individual problems and Collective problems. 

Individual problems deal with the problem of a human being with itself. A single human is a contradiction in itself. It has a fragmented being. What do I mean by this? Suppose I ask you if you will call yourself Kind. You might say yes. Most of us are in fact Kind in our day-to-day life. But, say, someone starts misbehaving with you on a daily basis. Will you be kind to him in that scenario? maybe not. You will let him taste the flavor of his own medicine, won't you? So, it means your kindness is conditional, right? We do not stop here. What if that person is a family member? You somewhat forgive him then. So, it is conditional with respect even to proximity to the person as well. There you go, Fragmented being. There is a constant conflict within the human to either be "Swaarthi" or "Paraarthi" [ Selfish or selfless]. To be selfish is to think about oneself and if you could not justify yourself about your decision, it leads to Maansik Avsaad, i.e. Mental health deterioration. Whereas, if you could not explain your overboard selflessness, it can again lead to self-hate, a sense of worthlessness. A fragmentation exists within the self of the human being. A human being is a struggle in itself, A Kurukshetra in itself. 

Collective problems are problems of humanity at large. This involves communities of humans interacting with each other on a mass scale. Global hunger issue, Terrorism, Climate change are some collective problems. Collective problems have a scale wise distinction in problems. Some are country specific problems, some family specific and some are even problems between two people forming an alliance institution like Marriage. 

Why are we in such a mess? Every human being asks this question at least once in a lifetime why he has to bear this all? He might come up with a solution which will, in his perspective, take him out of this mess. But when we think of humanity as a whole. What can redeem humanity from its sins? 

The Learned men, the monks, the saints of this land came up with a way of thinking which can be of some help. I call it the Dharmic Thought. Now, what is this Dharmic thought? In a more specific sense, this is what Upanishads and more scientifically Buddha talk about. Another wise man who came up with this is Lao Tzu in China. He calls it the Ultimate Tao. Can I explain the Dharmic thought in the content of one blog? No. But it is a beginning. I might write a series of blogs, explaining the Dharmic thought. Let us go in a Journey, Journeys need to be started. If they are your journeys, they will definitely find a good end.  

The Historical Accumulation of meaning

 Human beings live in a symbolic reality. This symbolic reality has many facets. Reality, which is not just out there. Reality which is much more in motion than a continuously moving hour hand of the most accurate clock. What are the symbols we are talking about? These can be anything. Anything at all. Words, most of all, words. Objects, gestures etc. We need to understand something before we jump to the conclusion which I have asserted here as an introduction. This something is the Historical accumulation of meaning. 

We define something. What do we mean when we state a definition. Something which is new to the world. When we give it a name and then define it, we are basically demarcating boundaries of meaning unique to the word and at the same time, stating its features. But is the meaning of the word or object defining it all? Common sense says yes. But Here is an example which will give you the next better perspective. 

Do you know what the word "Sachin" means? Most of you do not. But what an average Indian or for that matter, an average Cricket fan, thinks of Sachin is very vivid and clear. An epitome of the sport and for anything. Since, Sachin Tendulkar was a legend of cricket, He has given a new meaning to the word "Sachin", It means someone very good in Cricket and for that matter, anything. For example, you are a Sachin of your life. By the way, Originally Sachin means something which is related to pure existence. Are not the two meanings very different? 

This is what I mean when I say Historical accumulation of meaning. Words, objects and gestures travel in time and through histories and in different historical contexts, assume different meanings. This, in effect, breaks the boundaries of meaning of the word originally defined and this starts the journey of the word to transform into a symbol. What do I mean when I say a symbol? Symbol means, anything from which its original meaning is snatched away and is now only left with the historical accumulation it has got in time. It can be correlated with the deconstruction theory of Derrida. Here, when the Author's interpretation has died completely and has left the word with the interpretation of the people in power. People in power can easily subvert and give it an entirely different meaning which makes the etymology moot. What this has to do with our grand project? very much so. 

The problems faced by Humanity today has a fair share of problems which is because of the different meanings the words have accumulated throughout history. Let us take an example. Dharma is translated to Religion or Mazhab in Urdu. But if we go through the etymological meanings, we will be perplexed to know that they are very different words. Dharma is defined as "Dharayate iti Dharma" or Something which is to be held in heart. Mazhab derives from Arabian Madhab, which means to go off something, May be go beyond life, may be. Religion, at last, derives from Anglo-french religio meaning to have a moral reverence towards the sacred. 

This is just the beginning. We have not even gone through the historical accumulation the words have gone through in their separate histories. Mazhab in the middle east, Religion in Europe and Dharma in the Indian Sub-continent. This in itself is very important when we try to resolve the issues of Secularism and religion in the Political theory discourse. We need to roam deeply in the historical horizon of each word. As a matter of fact, I assert, it is the future of every word, object or gesture and that it will turn into an inanimate symbol, Symbol, which has got its meaning travelling through history. The Etymology will fade off from common human consciousness and only in intellectual discourses, it will be remembered. This, I assert, is why every ruling class tries to silence the intelligentsia when it comes to power. They want to symbolize, if I may now use this word, to every possible gesture, word or object. Look at what the current scene in India with respect to religion is. Colors, Animals, food everything is now merely a symbol symbolizing either your political stance or personal beliefs.  This points out the need for a constant watch at least on the meanings these symbols are taking and whether something close to the hearts of the common people is subverted and given an entirely destructive meaning by the people in power, hence starting a symbolic warfare of meanings. The fight of religion, the fight of caste, the fight of gender has many facets but hardly anyone thinks on this facet. Subversion of meaning, change of meaning by the ruling class is very common. This, we find mention in the discourse of hegemony by Gramsci and latest in the discourse of "Ideology" by Slavoj Zizek. There is a need to look in this area of ideology formation through historical accumulation of meanings. 

I will try to build up on this idea further in next blogs. Thanks for reading. 

Inquilab Zindabad 

Vibhat Kumar 

19-11-2023