Plan To Live

If you are a part of the human society, one of your main duties is to make it difficult for your fellow beings to exist. If you can’t manage that, you must at least be capable of not allowing them to be happy. For in today’s ideal society, everyone is concerned with every aspect of everyone’s life. So much so that the entity called life ceases to exist and what is left is merely a public spectacle.
Right from his birth, a man is condemned to serve the society’s purposes. His wishes, his aspirations do not matter, have never mattered. If born with an affluent background, he is condemned to excessive affection, or at least whatever is the society’s notion of affection. If born with a modest background, he is condemned to eternal pity. The value of simple indifference, the relief it can give, has never been understood; and call it a curse, it will never be understood.
A man is not considered a being of volition. His friends are handpicked by the society. His career is thrust upon him. Even the choice of his soulmate requires the society’s approval. And he must comply. He must comply if he wants to live in this society, if he wants to be accepted. And the irony is that even that need for acceptance is defined by the society, borne by the man as his own.
A girl and a boy cannot be friends, say the open minded people. A girl and boy should never be friends, say the narrow minded people. It is one of many instances when a man is forced to choose between one section of the society or the other. Following one’s heart and mind is not an option. Every step he takes is carefully scrutinised. Every action is censured. In the ideal society of today, a man is always on the brink of conviction, not by the law of the state, but by that of the society. The society terms this as the bond between humans, the bonds of love, I call it shackles.
I plan to break these shackles. Today I declare it to every human who thinks he can control my life. He cannot. I will not follow anyone but myself. I will not commit any action or have any thought that does not comply with my moral code, not the society’s. I will not surrender my happiness, my identity to please anyone. In fact, I will not do anything at all to please anyone but myself. I will not merely exist. I plan to live.