collective psychology

1. Collective psychology of atavistic mindsets and dilemmas.
The push and the pull factors.
India has a culture of push at family level and social level. At family level even the poor people push all their limits and try to
get their children educated, skilled and employed.The pull factor from government to absorb them , encourage them, at least those
who are well educated, employable and contributing tax is lacking.
So, individuals and small businesses are forced to fend for themselves. For example, if you see economies like Malaysia is it fully
only pull. The government literally, provides all facilities to Bhoomi putras whereas , in India even the most educated hardworking
tax paying individuals are at the mercy of government babus and politicians just to protect their hard-earned money and to get the
basic amenities. Though the conditions have been far better in the past 9 years, still a lot needs to be done.
There are or could be multiple reasons for this if we study collective psychology from all aspects. There are those shameless
colonial bossy insolence of the imperial elitists and supremacist narratives which have impacted so much that we see a mix of
some atavistic mindsets and dilemmas, some inherent self-imposed attitudes of unreasonable consternations creeping in
subconscious and squirming with uneasiness and more sickening attitude is that everyone starting from those in power to
ordinary employees getting excited by endorsement by those very colonial bosses.
Reality needs to take over Narratives.
The domineering tone of narratives of the West and its assertive publicity coupled with lack of spine from countries of Africa and
Asia have ensured through multiple means the West could lure the luddites and pamper the parasites than allow a self-respecting
country from Asia and Africa to march with its own ethnocentric pride even if it becomes in reality an economic power [ China-
now in deep trouble- and India], if it has immense natural resource owning nation [ African Gold mine owning nations and
Middle East oil owning nations] or provides excellent skilled and intelligent work force and technological innovations
generating countries [ Israel and India].

2. Strength needs to rule over dynamics of Power.
A day will come eventually when real ‘strength’ [ strength of natural resources, intellectual power, work force, skill
sets etc.] will overcome the dubious dynamics of ‘ power’ [ which go by mostly publicity driven narratives through
media, manipulations through military strategy and clandestine economic deals and grouping to impose sanctions etc.]
Self-imprisonment works in these ways without even our realizing it.
“Everything changes as you move through three stages of awareness:
first, that beliefs are the result of conditions.
second, that beliefs are the cause of conditions.
and third, that beliefs are themselves conditions.”― Eric Micha'el Leventhal.
George Bernard Shaw wrote, " The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
West will realise and stop its obsession to manipulate, homogenize and hegemonize through domination only when
the rest of the world starts to assert its bargaining power without any irrelevant exhibition of xenophobia.
India centric observations.
Most Indians emphasise more on survival aspect of life at the cost of the joys of living aspects of life.
Therefore, they tend to be employment seekers with immense social and parental pressure to get employed and
‘settling down in life’.

3. Living, growing up and settling down what do they mean?
Predominant middle class is an army of obsessive employment seeker with better stakes at matrimonial market.
Life in its very essence means lively so it cannot settle down. Settling down is a loosely used and well accepted terminological
contradiction.
Life has neither a pause button nor is it a pass it on baton.
Everything is part of life and not apart from life and therefore cannot be kept apart for a future date or an assumed future
condition.
Life may be very broadly viewed as involving two major aspects survival [physical, social, material, psychological etc] aspects of
life and living aspects of life [observing, enjoying, and experiencing life as it unfolds].
However, this sort of high-sounding philosophy is not meant as a sermon and need not distract anyone from pursuing planned
living geared towards certain practical better survival aspects.
Growing up and growing out of certain things are natural process of evolutionary metamorphosis both biologically and
psychologically.
In life many things or to be precise everything is a step or part but not a stop.
However , we are at liberty to create our own labels and definitions of settling down mostly used or abused by referring to mean
material comforts alone through which we presume some social respectability is gained.
"The simplicities of natural laws arise through the complexities of the language we use for their expression."- Eugene Wigner
"Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to
glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in
each experience -- to appreciate the fact that life is complex."- M. Scott Peck

4. Though no one can find fault with a notion which is predominant enough to influence and impact various aspects of life leading to
multiple complexes, comparisons, competitions, capability enhancement etc.
All of these have their positive as well as negative implications of varying degrees of intensities swinging between extremes like
enhanced performances, pride, privileges to sulking suicidal tendencies.
While the positive outcomes bring joy and are welcome, we need to address the negatives. But having taken a coin can we avoid
one side, or can we avoid the coin itself, no?
Our problem is mostly in either knowing the value of the coin or increasing its value, here finding the meaning and purpose of
life, or trying to define something or things as meaningful or purposeful or trying to improve or increase this purpose and meaning
of life. We can avoid the unpleasant consequences of ‘settling down’ if we have a better understanding of the inevitable facts and
infuse more substance into whatever we are doing rather trying to superficially substantiate our position or seeking others attention
to acknowledge it.
Comprehensive analysis hoping that it would lead to better understanding inevitably makes write ups long and therefore meant for
people with time, interest, and inclination to know much deeper rather than pandering to like button pressers, avid forwarders,
abbreviation lovers.
I firmly believe at least while discussing certain subjects in what Dobelli says, ‘In the Art of Thinking clearly’ "With journalists, it
is more difficult. Some have acquired true knowledge. Often they are veteran reporters who have specialized for years in a clearly
defined area. They make a serious effort to understand the complexity of a subject and to communicate it. They tend to write long
articles that highlight a variety of cases and exceptions.”
"Existence consists in the interplay of a plurality of elements whose true nature is indescribable and whose source is unknown.
Combinations of these elements instantaneously flash into existence and instantaneously disappear, to be succeeded by new
combinations of elements appearing in a strict causality." - Earle Ernst, The Kabuki Theatre

5. In the background of these simple and basic facts we need to go about unravelling more intrinsic aspects of life in much deeper
ways and try to understand a little more about life and what happens while we live it [ not brushing aside anything through
sermons as dos and don’ts or as traditions and taboos].
While doing this as I always maintain that we cannot avoid:- our vulnerability or accountability to existing manufactured belief
systems; social mores or morals either inculcated or enforced in whichever place/region/society we are born and brought up; the
ideas/opinions churned out in various field either relevant or irrelevant but exist out there and brought within the radar of our
attention and all these subjected to our limited perception and unlimited bias, inflated egos and lack of humility.
Along with these we must also realize that most of our actions and reactions are based on our inherent/innate/natural attributes, the
inevitable context/situation/circumstance in which we are in and our attitude [s] towards everything and everyone based on these
or despite these.It is also a fact that based on these we always end up acting or reacting with actions, words, thoughts etc according
to what we want, what we can and what we are destined to do. So, there is a perennial duel going on between inner
forces/weakness and external influences and impacts.
Life’s journey is a constant process of learning and adjusting to these and carrying on with various balancing acts, involving lot of
choices and decisions, which have a generous spread of synonyms to justify like inevitable confirmations, flexibilities, hypocrisies,
diplomacies, social accommodation, disciplined life, socio-cultural compatibility etc.
All fields of human knowledge systems and actions help us with accumulated knowledge of processes to facilitate us in our
choices and decisions be it religion, politics, science, or socio-cultural frames of functioning.
We must be able to steer clear of all unwanted distraction when we exercise our choice or take decisions to ensure that they give
pleasure to or improve us physically, psychologically, or spiritually without harming, or sometimes with the least possible harm to,
society and environment and all life forms. In short ensure intrinsic value additions to all or some of the facets of life mentioned
above.

6. "To make progress in understanding all this, we probably need to begin with simplified (oversimplified?) models and ignore the
critics' tirade that the real world is more complex. The real world is always more complex, which has the advantage that we shan't
run out of work."- John Ball, 1984, Memes as Replicators, Ethology and Sociobiology, Vol. 5
Like with everything else this concept of ‘settling down’ carries different crazy connotations, exerts various pressures, and extracts
varying degrees of sacrifice and or postponement of life’s joys and experiences depending on the economic conditions and socio-
cultural pressures etc.
In certain societies the competitions, comparisons and pressures are so enormous on everyone that it leads to various
manifestations of stress, frustrations, fights, and end ups depriving life of its happiness, peace, joy etc.
I am tempted to imitate an excellent and famous verse by Rabindranath Tagore
“Where The Mind Is Without Fear :
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”. –by Rabindranath Tagore

7. My imitated version of verse titled
‘Living life and setting down in life’
Where life is lived and leads us out of these compulsions:
Where life is made to pass through motions of /phases of existence
So that it can settle down somehow, somewhere in some way.
Where life’s activities must confirm existing approved labels.
Where life is deprived of any unbiased free observations.
Where life’s relationships are confined by narrow expectations of reciprocation.
Where life is subjected to scrutiny with ulterior motives and hidden agendas.
Where life’s interactions happen with lurking suspicions and simmering discontent.
Where life’s inter relatedness goes unnoticed because of narrow identity cages.
Let us live a life observing, experiencing, and enjoying as it unfolds continuously flowing like a gentle river without
settling down.
Let us enjoy the playful innocence of childhood.
Let us enjoy the carefree abandon of youth.
Let us learn the pleasures, privileges, and responsibility of blossoming adulthood.
Let us enjoy romance and relate with love.
Let us experience the inter relatedness of everything and everyone.
Let nature/fate decide to settle down life by stopping oxygen supply.

10. Why are many often in a dilemma?
Too ambivalent to clearly choose between the practical and idealistic that they cannot object either approaches;
Too bickering for petty benefits that they cannot afford to object to beneficiaries of certain entitlements;
Too caring about being cocooned in their personal comforts that they cannot advice others to come out of their comfort zones.
Too discursive in debates that they cannot find fault with others diverting from context;
Too easy going to object to expediency or opportunism that others seek;
Too fond of dabbling in too many things with a cursory interest without serious focused persistent pursuit of any particular thing that they cannot
find fault with superficiality of others or get intimidated by the specialist;
Too greedy that they cannot deny others' aggression to acquire more;
Too hypocritical that they cannot criticize double standards of others;
Too immune to insults and insinuations they cannot object to others' compromises;
Too judge​mental that they cannot avoid being evaluated;
Too kinky that they cannot find fault with aberrations of any sort in others;
Too laid back in their attitude that they cannot accuse others of not taking things seriously;
Too manipulative that they cannot accuse others of misusing them;
Too narcissistic that they cannot accuse others of selfishness;
Too overbearing that they cannot accuse others' bossy behavior;
Too passionate about certain things to the exclusion of other things that they cannot object to others' strong prejudices;
Too quixotic in disposition that they cannot question others' choices and decisions;
Too radical to object to any others' opinions;
Too sensitive to object to others taking offence at certain comments;
Too thick skinned to get offended by any comments and hence cannot accuse others' indifference;
Too unforgiving that they cannot question others' intolerance
Too vainglorious that they cannot accuse others of vanity;
Too xenophobic to object to ethnocentric protectionism in others;
Too yearning for everything that they cannot object to unrealistic desires of others;
Too zigzag in life's path that they cannot suggest any path to others;
Too wobbly is the whole life with all actions, emotions, recreations, thoughts, ideas, reasoning, rewards , rich experiences and all winding paths
which makes it clear that 'wisdom is always a work in progress' and hence, we need to accept others for what they are worth without trying to act
wise or attempting to give advices.