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Attention conservation notice: Self-assumed philosopher trying to be messiah
I remember reading somewhere what Buddha once said, "We all are the same" and my first impression of this statement was contradictory as we all differ in our life conditioning, such as culture, parenting, and the environment in which we grew up. But later, with time, I understood that it was about the mind—not even the brain—as the working of minds around ego seems quite similar for everyone.
We have the same ego-based mind, but cultural conditioning gives our ego a specific identity and makes us different. For instance, how much personal space you have depends on whether you belong to a socialistic fabric of a society or an individualistic one. In socialistic societies such as Asiatic—the southeast part, to be specific—the concept of personal space either never existed or is completely forgotten. Based on the history of Indian religions/philosophies, it is clear that the consequence of it was that some people took extreme measures and opted for a monastic lifestyle. Contrary to socialistic societies, in the current individualistic society where personal space is very important, one can have his/her privacy, and that makes people respectful towards each other's personal space. However, the current living conditions contradict the argument for an individualistic society having more personal space because to provide personal space, we need physical space as well. In capitalistic times, expenses are increasing, and newer generations can barely afford separate rooms, let alone personal space.
In modern times—referring to the post-war era—the boost in migration led to a lot of intercultural mixing, resulting in a complex interaction of thousands of years old societies with modern ones. This was happening before as well, but not at such a scale, which might be due to faster transport. The interaction between people of different cultures is complex to understand, as the migrants and the natives can have very different mindsets and understandings of the world. The types of interactions--varying from romantic to aggressive rivalry--further complicate it. Among the migrants, some adapt to the new environment quickly and "allegedly" live their life happily ever after, while others either decide to move out again or live there without ever feeling connected. The conflict between their parenting culture and the culture in which they migrate worsens their identity crisis. Salman Rusdie's popular novel Midnight's Children captures this crisis very well.
The established relations between natives and migrants also suffer due to cultural differences which, I believe, is stronger for rigid mentality people. Both strong believers and non-believers of God consider others wrong. An orthodox does not believe in other forms of God and therefore rejects the migrant's religion (or native religion). Similarly, non-believers consider like-minded people sane and other lunatics. An atheist migrant might go well with non-believer natives, but a religious migrant might not. While the former seems to be more discriminating (religious wars are a good example), the latter also discriminates on the same religious grounds.
I often wonder why we humans do not keep our minds open. Why do we choose one side or another? Why support familiar beliefs and reject or criticize other's beliefs? The world we see today is built on evolutionary grounds where everything from our food habits and religions to our living styles, is evolved rather than selected by someone. The struggle between vegetarians (now also vegan) and non-vegetarians is well known, where vegetarians (religious or health conscious) see meat-eaters as barbarians who kill, while meat-eaters see vegetarians as weak (or maybe stupid) due to malnourishment. I have encountered several manipulating people who mock me for being a vegetarian and try to convince me to eat meat. A similar argument goes with drinkers and non-drinkers who either never have tried or quit alcohol. The former type of non-drinkers is easily manipulated by drinkers due to the pressure of social acceptance or a lack of experience. The key question is the same, Why can't we leave others alone to let them choose what they like?
Religion is also a similar but more complicated matter due to the past several religious massacres in the name of one belief or another. However, religion seems to be a universal phenomenon that arises due to the need for an explanation of things ancient humans could not understand. Philosophy and science were developed to fulfill that need. So many philosophers--including scientists as they were known as philosophers in old times--fought for it and were killed by rigid-minded people. Yet here we are, still fighting with a rigid mentality—against religion now—that appeared in a new form now as blind scientific believers or non-believers. These people do not question science and completely ignore their observations on behalf of scientific articles. There are so many ill-understood problems in the world, including psychological ones, that it is not clear whether we will ever be able to solve all of them. Mysticism is one of them, where the specific experience of an individual leads him to agnosticism. Stoics/ Jains/ Buddhists are another where the followers practice a very strenuous lifestyle with strong ethics and morals. Why do they want to suffer? What are they seeking for? These questions are not very easy to answer but only tell us to keep our minds open and observe.
Maybe by observation, you can find something new as well. You can be a second Freud.
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Posted at: Sun, 16 Feb 2025 09:10 GMT
category: /weblog/posts