Good Or Bad ?

LakshmiKMBhat · May 16, 2017

The other day I faced a situation when my mindset about someone was changed when I had to compare their attitude with that of someone else. It happens so often. We form an opinion, usually it is not a good opinion, and then a situation arises when we discover that our opinion was mistaken. Most of us change our opinions over the course of time. We make comparisons about people or places or things and keep asking ourselves, “good or bad, better or worse?” Thinking about comparisons, my mind went back many years in time. Some of us were conversing with my husband’s aunt. She passed away last month at the age of 86. She was a very gentle soul, one of the sweetest persons I have known.

She grew in the first half of the 20th century in a hamlet as part of a joint family. People of our community were usually agriculturists. They had settled down in valleys were there was a good supply of water. Agriculturists in my country depend a lot on monsoons for all agricultural activities. Parents, their sons, their wives and children and other relatives all lived under a single roof.

My father-in-law used to say people in the villages were very self-sufficient. The members of the family had to work very hard. It is very difficult for us to imagine that life. It was a patriarchal society. Girls studied only till they completed primary school. Then they got married. They had to live according to the customs and traditions of their house. There was very little scope for them to go against those rules. The family was important, not the individual. A cousin used to say most girls never got the opportunity to discover their talents or even express them. Household work and other chores kept them busy from morning to night. As I mentioned above, families were extremely large then.

We were talking about how girls and women of the family managed during their monthly periods. They had stay away from other people. Very often they used to sit in a separate room. In a way, those days were a period of rest for them, a break from their household duties. But they had to work outside the house. Maybe it was difficult for them to sit idle. Such a situation seems very strange to us. We are used to having time for ourselves, to follow our own interests. We do have house work but this is not time consuming. Moreover we no longer have large, extended families living together in our part of the country. We remarked to my husband’s aunt that life must have been very difficult for them. She said, “We did not think it was difficult because we knew only that life. Everybody lived the same way. We never compared because there was nothing to compare our lives with. Of course there were difficulties in life. Life was difficult due to the existing conditions and not because we looked at the lives of others and compared.” Her words made so much sense. There was wisdom in those words. They have always been a part of my life.

I remember reading these words long ago, but I don’t remember whose words they are: “Never judge a person by standing in your shoes because your problems are different from their problems. You will be able to understand that person only when you stand in that person’s shoes.”

(This photo was taken by my father-in-law’s younger brother in early 1950s. He took the photo from inside a tunnel in a hillside, between two fields.)

PushpavalliSrinivasan · May 16, 2017

Dear Lakshmi,
Though I don't agree comparing one person to another one, generally I find it is the human tendency. Each individual has unique qualities even if they are twins.
PS

iamsrihere · May 16, 2017

I think they were busy throughout the day with lot of work. Hence they didnt have time to even think about themselves or worry about what they did not have.Hence we didnt hear much about depression/anxiety as we hear today.Also living in joint families did not make them self centered ,but they were more tolerant. In addition,good quality lifestyle, food and exercise were also reasons for their stronger mental health.

Today we are losing out on the positives mentioned above.We live in nuclear families and thus are concerned more about I/Me,hence no scope for tolerance/adjustments. Less physical activity hence more time for comparison with other families,and evil thoughts. To make things worse, the quality of food we eat today is very poor,more use of chemicals and pesticides is killing the nutrition that we need to get.

So circumstances have made us the way we are now.

Umanga · May 16, 2017

Very nice. I would say our lives are worse but then, I have never experienced the life described above. I agree with @iamsrihere. The quality of food and meals nowadays, especially in the West, is terrible. You live alone in a shitty apartment with nothing but the internet for company. You get up, get-ready and go to work where you spend 8 hours a day staring at a computer screen and trying to avoid your colleagues. You eat a shitty lunch packed in plastic or some other artificial material. The next few hours are spent trying to fight-off postprandial somnolence. Then it's time to leave where you take shitty public transport, ignoring everybody around you before walking to your dark and dingy apartment. There, loneliness and bitterness await. No food. Shopping to be done. Clothes and utensils to be washed. I would take the life described by @LakshmiKMBhat, had I been born to it, any day. Yes, there is work to be done but then we have all been endowed with bodies and we don't use them. They waste away. The food is fresh and tasteful. Everybody knows their position. The family stays together. And if we think modern life gives us the freedom to express our talents, I must demur. Modern life equips us to work in an office. Not much of a life. I think we need to go back to our old ways, because this life, the one we have, the one that has been given to us, is not worth living.

iamsrihere · May 16, 2017

Umanga said: ↑

Very nice. I would say our lives are worse but then, I have never experienced the life described above. I agree with @iamsrihere. The quality of food and meals nowadays, especially in the West, is terrible. You live alone in a shitty apartment with nothing but the internet for company. You get up, get-ready and go to work where you spend 8 hours a day staring at a computer screen and trying to avoid your colleagues. You eat a shitty lunch packed in plastic or some other artificial material. The next few hours are spent trying to fight-off postprandial somnolence. Then it's time to leave where you take shitty public transport, ignoring everybody around you before walking to your dark and dingy apartment. There, loneliness and bitterness await. No food. Shopping to be done. Clothes and utensils to be washed. I would take the life described by @LakshmiKMBhat, had I been born to it, any day. Yes, there is work to be done but then we have all been endowed with bodies and we don't use them. They waste away. The food is fresh and tasteful. Everybody knows their position. The family stays together. And if we think modern life gives us the freedom to express our talents, I must demur. Modern life equips us to work in an office. Not much of a life. I think we need to go back to our old ways, because this life, the one we have, the one that has been given to us, is not worth living.
Click to expand...

Modern life has not made us independent or not provided freedom, but we have become slaves. We slog for someone else's company growth.

People of those days were truly independent because they learnt to be self sufficient and learnt to produce their own food.They could manage in any circumstance. Today we cannot manage even if there mosquitoes/heat/intense physical activity/hunger. We have actually been trapped into slavery indirectly.

But had the older generation been more thoughtful about the future generation, they would not have increased the population to this extent

Umanga · May 16, 2017

iamsrihere said: ↑

Modern life has not made us independent or not provided freedom, but we have become slaves. We slog for someone else's company growth.

People of those days were truly independent because they learnt to be self sufficient and learnt to produce their own food.They could manage in any circumstance. Today we cannot manage even if there mosquitoes/heat/intense physical activity/hunger. We have actually been trapped into slavery indirectly.

But had the older generation been more thoughtful about the future generation, they would not have increased the population to this extent
Click to expand...

I know you are making a joke in the last sentence but it points to another curious feature of modernity. Everybody on this forum is "trying to conceive" (TTC). When did trying to conceive become such an onerous and planned endeavour? You got married, mated and dealt with the result, usually all in adolescence. Having children was not an option or a choice, it was just an outcome of the natural rhythms of life. And the couple were not left alone to raise the child, the entire extended family participated. Infertile couples were given the children of their relatives to raise as their own. No need for adoption agencies. I think children have an excellent time in India. They are so well-looked after and so well-taken care of. Strangers will come and start patting your child, playing with him and taking care of him and the parents don't even look because that's how it is here, even today.

I think a very cruel feature of modern life is schooling. The child is taken away from his parents and handed over to strangers to be taught things that are completely useless and preparing him only for life in an office. And the torture goes on and on and on. Now, people who have never had any interest in higher education are even getting PhDs. I cannot think of a more corrupt system than this. In earlier times, value was rooted in what you could produce, be it grains, clothing, crafts or in rare cases art, poetry or other products of the intellect. The only thing that the office-adult creates is PPTs and other such abominations.

iamsrihere · May 16, 2017

Umanga said: ↑

I know you are making a joke in the last sentence but it points to another curious feature of modernity. Everybody on this forum is "trying to conceive" (TTC). When did trying to conceive become such an onerous and planned endeavour? You got married, mated and dealt with the result, usually all in adolescence. Having children was not an option or a choice, it was just an outcome of the natural rhythms of life. And the couple were not left alone to raise the child, the entire extended family participated. Infertile couples were given the children of their relatives to raise as their own. No need for adoption agencies. I think children have an excellent time in India. They are so well-looked after and so well-taken care of. Strangers will come and start patting your child, playing with him and taking care of him and the parents don't even look because that's how it is here, even today.

I think a very cruel feature of modern life is schooling. The child is taken away from his parents and handed over to strangers to be taught things that are completely useless and preparing him only for life in an office. And the torture goes on and on and on. Now, people who have never had any interest in higher education are even getting PhDs. I cannot think of a more corrupt system than this. In earlier times, value was rooted in what you could produce, be it grains, clothing, crafts or in rare cases art, poetry or other products of the intellect. The only thing that the office-adult creates is PPTs and other such abominations.
Click to expand...

Again the reason for too many people TTC is bad food/lifestyle/stress as posted earlier. But I would think the quality has reduced in all sectors be it health/happiness or work is because of over population. Corruption has occurred because the resources are less and has to be shared by the many many people. Hence it has become a game of who wins more irrespective of how.

Also TTC is the price we are paying for population destroying the natural resources around us.

The effects of over population has now become the cause of infertility.

Umanga · May 16, 2017

iamsrihere said: ↑

Again the reason for too many people TTC is bad food/lifestyle/stress as posted earlier. But I would think the quality has reduced in all sectors be it health/happiness or work is because of over population. Corruption has occurred because the resources are less and has to be shared by the many many people. Hence it has become a game of who wins more irrespective of how.

Also TTC is the price we are paying for population destroying the natural resources around us.

The effects of over population has now become the cause of infertility.
Click to expand...

My point was slightly different. In olden times, we did not have physical and chemical contraception. Women didn't have "careers" that they had to attend to, neither did men. There was no concept of "planned pregnancy". You got married early, at your sexual prime, in adolescence and copulated. Children emerged naturally. People are finding it difficult to conceive because a) it is happening late and b) they want to reproduce only at a certain time when both man and wife feel ready and are financially-stable. I do not blame them because they are only responding to the incentives and constraints they face. There is too much stress surrounding the act. A sharp line is being drawn between sex as pleasure and sex as a reproductive activity. It was never meant to be this way. Nature made sex pleasurable as a way of ensuring the continuation of life. The sexual urge is so strong because nature doesn't want us to have a choice in the matter. But Western science has made having kids optional. We now have sex only for pleasure. This is a very strange development and women's bodies cannot be immune to the damage done by chemical contraception. It is only a matter of time before scientific research validates this.

Having said that, I also like the points you have raised.

iamsrihere · May 16, 2017

Umanga said: ↑

My point was slightly different. In olden times, we did not have physical and chemical contraception. Women didn't have "careers" that they had to attend to, neither did men. There was no concept of "planned pregnancy". You got married early, at your sexual prime, in adolescence and copulated. Children emerged naturally. People are finding it difficult to conceive because a) it is happening late and b) they want to reproduce only at a certain time when both man and wife feel ready and are financially-stable. I do not blame them because they are only responding to the incentives and constraints they face. There is too much stress surrounding the act. A sharp line is being drawn between sex as pleasure and sex as a reproductive activity. It was never meant to be this way. Nature made sex pleasurable as a way of ensuring the continuation of life. The sexual urge is so strong because nature doesn't want us to have a choice in the matter. But Western science has made having kids optional. We now have sex only for pleasure. This is a very strange development and women's bodies cannot be immune to the damage done by chemical contraception. It is only a matter of time before scientific research validates this.

Having said that, I also like the points you have raised.
Click to expand...

Well yes,i missed an important point of planning pregnancies and ticking biological clocks.

Cheeniya · May 16, 2017

My dear Lakshmi
I have watched five generations viz. my grandma, my mother, daughters and grand daughters and I have plenty to say on this subject but I feel tongue-tied. Men did not have to change much to keep pace with the changing scenario but women were deliberately kept outside the public life. The liberation of women started gaining ground around the time I was born. Women are now making up for all that they missed in the previous generations at a frenetic pace. It is certainly good for all for in this fast passed world, I do not think that men can handle it all by themselves as in the previous generations
Sri