As a part “millennial” who has grown up in a very
“supervised” and super “restrictive” and “conservative” society as small town
India my formative values have been always to care about what you say and put
yourself and your feelings at the very back of the line.
In the very laced line above people my say that my
description of my growing up would make India seem very backward and yet I am
one of the most progressive people I know, and all those quoted things need a
further discussion of their own. The bottom line that I have grown up with the
“values” of caring more about others and their feelings and sort of suppress
your own.
Now my life as a researcher affords me the opportunity and
the privilege to see the world and interact with people with various familial
and societal set up that very different than mine. Not only that being in
academia also makes my interaction crowd very present day “millennials” and the
next to them as well. As I interact with them I find that they are more and
more “unapologetic” about their actions, choices and wear it on their sleeve.
This is such a refreshing change and I fully support this as I believe that all
adults must make their own “mistakes” and learn from them. Sheltering just
delays the inevitable. As a character in Dr. strange says “your actions have
consequences and they always come back, added up” or simply “karma is a bitch”.
So this attitude to lead the life on their own terms is so
endearing and is such a basic human right. This is constantly infringed, influenced
and in some cases dictated by people around you be it your parents or your
friends and even your circumstances. I can understand that in this constantly
interacting world of ours nothing can exist in seclusion or isolation (unless
we actively choose to do so), getting influenced by our own understanding and
of our own free will is acceptable to me. Other interferences especially
familial is not desirable.
There is another side to the story as well where your
unapologetic behavior may also be driving people away and alienating them.
There is an evidence of increased psychological breakdown among the youth as
after a long day of being the unapologetic self you realize that you might be
all alone in your despair. That might be a direct consequence of your actions
or simply the fact that people are growing up in different times and are very
particular about their lives and their choices creating an alienating
ecosystem, which in its initial stages may seem dangerous but might stabilize
in the long run or may even simply evolve from here.
But as they say once you have seen it you cannot go back and
once you come out of your blissful ignorance which I have I am all for being
unapologetic and living your life on your own term and your free will. Every
now and then I face situations, where my two worlds collide but I am learning
to navigate through this and in time will find my own little “equilibrium”
where I can exist in peace among all this clash.
Amen to the distant utopia of mine!
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