We the Humans

Recently, one of my friends suggested watching a TED talk by Yuval Noah Harari, where he talks about why human beings became superior beings to other living animals on the planet. He explains that The significant reason is that we can follow subjective reality like money, politics, rules, and regulations, which other living beings cannot follow. For instance, you can never train a chimpanzee to trade a banana for a piece of paper, which humans name as money, and we decide collectively to use that to buy things we need. So, trading bananas for a piece of paper is subjective reality versus objective reality, where we would trade bananas for bananas or any other fruit. Listening to the talk was an eye-opening and intriguing perspective for me.

Last evening (my husband and I went shopping), and it just dawned upon me that it is not only money, politics, and otherworldly things that we have created subjective reality for. It is much deeper than that. We have done this for our deepest feelings and emotions, too. While shopping, my husband was having a lot of hesitation to buy a pair of shoes. I could see that he really liked the boots, but he was also looking to purchase shoes for his father, and somehow, he had to justify buying both pairs. I sensed the hesitation, and I had to tell him in actual words that he could buy both pairs of shoes. And it is okay for him to splurge on himself sometimes, and he is allowed to do so. 

This whole incident was Deja Vu to me. I have seen the same behavior from my parents and me sometimes. The generation before us does not believe in self-care. I always saw our parents and elders caring for others, but they feel it is wrong to care for yourself and do things you like. This behavior manifests as bitterness in personality at the later stages of life. We have seen some of our elders who are just bummed and bitter all the time. I feel like it is a byproduct of too much struggle in their younger life and never taking time to take care of themselves or enjoy life. And now they blame others for this. We tend to postpone and say we will enjoy life later, as the song says, " Chalis kate pachi ramula,"  (wil enjoy life after 40 ). However, the 40s translate to the 50s and 60s, but it took little time for them. When we realize it is too late, physical and mental health will give up on us. Sometimes, this behavior is like a curse, which, to some extent, we have inherited as a legacy. It comes from our fundamental life value to look out for others, but it is also profoundly rooted in poverty that we previously faced and, to some extent, still face. We have these deeply seated insecurities that we might lose everything at once, and the life we put so much hard to build might disappear instantly. We were raised believing we would have rainy days and needed to save and always have backup plans, which is okay. However, we tend to forget that we have finite days on this planet and can enjoy and live in the moment. We all can buy a pair of shoes, clothes, jewelry, and things we like to do once in a while. It is perfectly okay to be kind to yourself. No one will judge you for doing that. If we always think about the future as dreadful, it is like driving looking in the rearview mirror.