You Can (Not) Improve — “Things I wish I knew earlier.”

You might be probably thinking, what’s with this weird title? Is ‘Not’ silent in it, or are we supposed to read it together, and if it’s not, then why the hell am I so pessimistic about it. Let’s keep that thought aside for a moment. This article is a collection of things I learned from watching/reading different tv shows, movies, books, and documentaries, all presented in a unified way. Please find the list of references at the end of the article and do support the original authors. If you’re currently suffering from anxiety or depression then consider not reading this article as this might fuel your depression even more (which is not at all my intention) give it a read when you’re mindful and ready to give it a deep thought.

This world is full of conspiracies — The Columbia disaster, Moon landing, flat Earth, and many more. But are they true? I’m not sure, but there’s always something that we don’t know, something so bizarre yet so fitting. If we take the speed of light 299792458 m/s and put a decimal point after the first nine i.e. 29.9792458 ºN, that’s the latitude of the great pyramid of Giza, coincidence? It’s been hypothesized for years that aliens are the ones who created pyramids. Now I bet 99% of you reading this article might be laughing their socks off, but the other 1% reading this, the ones who are mentally aware, for them this is a large elaborate conspiracy. “We’re all living inside a simulation,” as the famous entrepreneur Elon Musk once said. I read a sci-fi story once. The story takes place somewhere in the future, shortly after the aliens wiped out the human race. The main character is the only survivor, then he finds out about these weird aliens, and it turns out that the only reason he is alive is to use him as a human test subject. So they created a simulation of what the Earth was like before. The catch is if the human goes outside too much, he will eventually figure out that the world he is living in is fake. So, they decide to mold the human into a NEET introvert and keep him isolated from the rest of the world. Of course, that main character is none other than us. “Free will is an illusion.” as said by countless authors, we are constantly getting manipulated by the ones more powerful. Social media influence discrimination in the promise of free will. Freedom of action and speech imposed by the law seeks nothing but riots & destructions. Trying obsessively hard sometimes leads nowhere, and God, I bet God doesn’t even exist, and even if it does, God must be evil to let all these sufferings go on. It’s all a conspiracy, and we need to escape it.

“Humans are social animals.” We lost most of our cognitive and physical abilities in return for the human brain through evolution, originally evolving from a primate. We learned how to think, how to talk, we created languages, we shared opinions, humans created other humans, we created society. Since early ages, humans have lived socially with one another. Today, in the age of social media, we’re always connected to everyone. It’s a luxury that we take for granted. I see people boasting on LinkedIn that they 5–10 offers, even preparing a collage with all the companies logos. Some might argue that there’s nothing wrong with such posts, and I agree with them. We have rewarded the winners for years — the people who run the fastest, are the smartest, or jump the highest. We don’t reward the people “who say they are smartest.” but this has become a trend thanks to social media. Celebrities tweet over stupid things to get more attention. Things that make you seem virtuous rather than acting upon them are more common nowadays. Through social media, we get likes and shares, people comment and talk about it to the extent that sometimes what we had originally posted doesn’t matter anymore. Yes! It’s a conspiracy. Those billionaire bastards are just stealing our data in return, giving us a fake, unrealistic, superficial world where every goddamn person is looking pretty because of their stupid Instagram filters.

What is a virtue, then? And what makes someone actually virtuous? Of course, you can help others and go completely selfless in doing so, but then you may end up damaging your own time, energy, and self-respect. On the other hand, if you don’t help anyone and stay reserved, you become arrogant and isolated. If you’re too scared of something, you’re a coward, but if you’re fearless, you become overconfident. If you get offended by humor too much, that makes you boring; however, you are seen as stupid or unserious if you make too many jokes. There’s no right and wrong. Good and bad is a relative concept. A simple answer would be to achieve a balance in everything, but achieving that balance is never that easy. If it were, we’d all be living in a perfect world.

For someone obsessed with money or fame, it gives them a pleasure to have those things. More money means more to spend which in turn means more happiness, which makes sense. If you have money, you can buy a luxury car, and then everyone will talk about you, which can lead to happiness. But it’s funny in a way that we are killing our current happiness to gain future happiness. We can simply travel and enjoy others’ company instead of all those efforts and late-nighters that we pull off. Why don’t we just pause and enjoy life instead of working our asses off even during weekends if that’s the case? “I’m compromising current happiness for the greater good, to gain even more happiness in the future.” — that’s the typical reply from anyone who’s practicing this. The greater good that sounds cool; there’s a very famous psychological experiment called The Trolley Problem.

Someone might even argue that this thinking is so hollow and that you don’t need money to be happy in the first place and that the happiness comes from inside, just stay happy. These things may sound nice on paper, but in reality, you can’t say the same to a homeless beggar yearning for food. For them, money and food are all they need, and they may hurt, rob, or even kill someone to satisfy this need if they have to. The question is, will you really consider this act as bad? Knowing that all that person wanted was to feed their loved ones just to keep them alive one more day. “Object holds no value, action does" more money is worthless if there’s no action involved to it. You never look at a piece of bill and admire the looks of Mahatma Gandhi (his photo is printed on India currency). We love money because we like the actions associated with it. Getting an iPhone, or new PlayStation or some big property. Again you don’t enjoy objects you enjoy action, you won’t want to buy an iPhone if you are already used to it. And heck after purchasing we get bored of it pretty soon too. We forget the real difference of object and actions and sometimes value too much on a materialistic object. Same with the case of a poor stealing money. They yearn for a better lifestyle not sooner cash that’s just gonna lie around. But again, no one should be this emotional or irrational with their decision; otherwise, someone might take advantage of the situation. It’s a full business nowadays, poor kids getting sold off to slavery then forced to beg and even dragged to prostitution.

These all examples might sound too far-fetched to someone, but the reality is not very different. We bully others based on their appearances, color, race, gender, disability, etc., as we are stepping into the modern world, thanks to media raising public awareness through ads campaigns. Big celebrities like Kendall Jenner bringing messages like world peace and women’s march in one of her recent Pepsi commercials, a goddamn 20 seconds commercial with so many good messages, even though she was not the part of women’s march (sarcasm intended). But at least now we know how the minority groups feel. We are constantly getting reminded about animal cruelty, gender discrimination, racism, and all the bad stuff that’s happening around. Hurray!! We solved the problem (or at least we are on the right track). What about the pyramid scheme? If you don’t know, it’s the sort of business where you try selling some useless product locally to someone and ask them to bring in more people, and as they invite, their status will grow up in the pyramid. It’s technically legal, but that makes it all the way more lethal. Have you ever heard of the company “Sahara”? I bet you did. Sahara is the company that promised to make everyone in India rich, and what did they do? They vanished, stealing all of our money in the early 20s. Fraudsters like Vijay Mallya and Neerav Modi are a menace to our society.

Now you must be thinking, why am I bringing scams after bullying and discrimination? It’s because that’s a conspiracy too. Everyone in this world knowingly or unknowingly wants always to get you down. Life is a zero-sum game. Rich people usually keep getting richer, while the poor keep getting poorer. The reality is that it’s not just a selected few people who discriminate or bully; we all are bad, we all want someone worse than us to exist. So that even if our life is all falling apart, even if we treat ourselves as a failure of human being we can still say “Well at least I’m better off that guy!”. This mentality is what gives birth to discrimination, inequality, scams, greed, hypocrisy, pride. And believe it or not, no matter how nice a person you are, you must have done this too at some point in your life. After selflessly helping someone, don’t you feel a little sense of pride in yourself? Pride in this feeling that you are better than them. It’s the same as looking down on others, not in terms of intensity but motives wise it’s the same. Humans made their way up to the food chain. We are the smartest, most perfect animal on Earth. Yet, we don’t know a single thing about cooperating with others. Ants are the perfect example of cooperation and true teamwork. They exist in a group acting as one, collecting food and searching for shelter. Many ants’ psychology research suggests that they don’t even have any signs of individuality. They would die for one another without a second thought. “To know individuality is to know suffering”. Imagine a random beggar coming to you and asking for 10K $ you’d be hesitant to give them even though you are fine with it, you’d prefer giving it to reputable charity instead of a random stranger on street. It’s just not that simple to trust others because of human’s individuality. And after receiving the money, the Government won’t trust them and ask for tax. Then we don’t trust Government because of fear of corruption. It all goes in a full circle, a vicious deadlock with no escape. It’s like I said to know individuality is to know fear and doubt which leads to sufferings. Think about it, all the wars and terror can be wiped out if only we surrender our individuality, if there’s no I or me and everyone is one then there’s no suffering just like an ant colony. It turns out we are far worse than the ants.

On second thought, having no sense of individuality is horrible if you think about it. There will be no such thing as a personal goal, opinion, or anything at all. It will be a dictatorship governing society.

“Don’t try” are the words carved on the gravestone of renowned author Charles Bukowski. You see, he’s an alcoholic, womanizer, gambler, and all the bad things you can imagine a person to be. And yet, if you Google his name, you will see many motivational quotes. Many people throw too much opinion on others (myself included, this article is proof XD). People post their morning routines, how they sleep only four hours a day, waking up early in the morning, studying/working fifteen hours a day. Well, I am not sure if they really follow it, but let’s come back to what Charles Bukowski meant by “Don’t try.” He admitted that he was a failure and made it by chance. While trying to achieve something, sometimes overthinking and obsessing about it is not the right thing.

Have you ever experienced not wanting something yet still fulfilling it? Trying obsessively hard would only stress you more. Let me tell you a story, an old mythological tale. It’s about Tantalus, son of lord Zeus from Norse mythology. Looking at his son wasting his life doing absolutely nothing, Zeus banished him as a punishment one day. In his vivid dreams, Tantalus was secluded from others somewhere in the mountains. He’d often yearn for food, reaching out to a nearby tree only to find the tree growing taller and taller with each of his futile attempts. He’d reach out to a sea to quench his thirst only to find the water suddenly getting all dry up. That was his punishment, Tantalus thought as he spent countless amounts of time in that unknown cruel world. Days, weeks, and even months passed by still every time it was the same — “countless continuous yearning leading him nowhere.” However, Tantalus soon realized one important thing. He doesn’t need food or water in this fictional world. Those things are mere distractions, without which he can live even years; it’s his willpower with which he can even manipulate time itself. So with this, Tantalus finally realized the meaning of distraction, and Zeus freed him from his banishment.

While the above story may sound very motivating, if we don’t try hard, chances are we may never get it. Ever experienced trying obsessively hard and still not getting the expected results? Then you started questioning the reality; all the motivational quotes about not giving up and trying very best were all lies in the end. Is this a conspiracy? A trap set by others to bring us down? People say that God is watching all the time and that we will be punished for wrong deeds and rewarded for good actions. Then why doesn’t God just wipe out all the bad things in the world instantly? I doubt if God even exists, and even if it does, I bet God is a part of this conspiracy too.

For me, the existence of God has always been a very debatable subject. If anyone had asked me If I believed in God maybe a year ago, my answer would have been a straight no. But now, the answer is different, and don’t worry; I won’t sound like your eighty-year-old grandma who just never shuts up about God and religion. For me, to know God is to know hope, and if I were at the place of someone suffering from a lack of self-confidence or anxiety, I want at least God to believe in me. If someone believes in you, you are not alone, so it does have an inner peace or placebo effect, even if it’s this superficial sense of belief. People keep their morals intact in the name of God, the concept of Swarg and Narak exists to serve as a reminder for us always to do the right thing. There are also the Seven deadly sins classified in many mythologies. People also connect with society through God. Think of temple as a place where like minded people who love religion and mythological studies interact. When I was a kid, I thought these old hags knew nothing about science & technology and that they were quite stupid to believe in something so clearly fake. No, they are very smart. You see, for ages, people have lived in stress; it’s not a new thing; even though mental health is the topic that is getting media attention nowadays, the truth is these things have always existed. And amidst that, forgetting about all the bad stuff and keeping your hopes and morals intact while socializing with society sounds like the perfect deal to me. But we can’t just put blind faith in God either; remember the alien story from the beginning. Putting too much faith means getting trapped in the conspiracy. Not to mention many scams exist too in the name of God. That’s a conspiracy, and we need to escape it.

Hedgehog’s Dilemma, it’s a metaphor for the challenges of human interactions. Hedgehogs are cute, small, fluffy, just insert all the right buzzwords kind of animals. However, they also have spikes on their bodies. For us, humans touching them despite their spikes is no big deal after all their spikes aren’t sharp. That’s why we even have Hedgehog cafes these days in some countries where people pay to pet them. However, from a hedgehog’s perspective, those spikes could hurt because of their soft skin — a baby hedgehog brought to this world with those spikes lives a horrible life despite their cuteness. If it goes near other hedgehogs, they both will just hurt and run away from each other. Eventually, as the baby hedgehog grows up, it learns the right distance it needs to avoid hurting anyone around. We humans also need to maintain the right amount of distance from others to avoid hurting them unknowingly. Unless, of course, we genuinely want to hurt others, maybe out of revenge or jealousy. Wouldn’t you feel even a slight bit of regret doing so? “They deserve this!” That’s a typical reply from someone thinking of doing this, and when they reach such a verdict, they will do worse possible things under their power. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” in other words having overwhelming power or authority is absolute corrupting and can turn even the most purest person into evil. There’s a very famous psychological experiment called Stanford Prison Experiment to prove this scientifically. You need to take care of yourself otherwise these conspiracies will eat you from inside.

Let us next talk about love. Romantic feelings that is highly idolized in our media. To understand the existence of love, let’s go back to the ancient era. Around that time, there was no concept of love. There was general reproduction going on mostly by force, and people used to have multiple partners back then. No kid born at that time would even know who their father might be; those people’s only purpose of existence was to hunt, survive and then reproduce more. It was the survival of the fittest; those who are fit enough would be only capable of reproducing.

Well, we sure moved quite a long from that time. After the ancient era monarch system came into the picture. Soon rulers and kings were assigned to keep necessities and safety intact for the citizens. Later the famous rule that the king’s son would become the next king came. But wait, until then, there were multiple partners, so to avoid any problems, the concept of marriage came. And, of course, marriage existed only within the royal families. Back then, marriage was not seen romantically but rather as a contract stating that the king shall only have one partner and allowed to have only one son. Moreover, If two countries are enemies, just marry each other’s country princess and prince, and yeah, a treaty is formed, problem solved. Soon marriage was seen more like a true romance, and people connected with sympathy rather than as a tool, and after that, people outside the royal family also adapted it. Fast-forwarding to today, romance is everywhere — our media idolizes romance. Can we really trust something whose entire history is based on just breeding and reproduction? And people change a lot, too, both physically and mentally; change is inevitable. The person you like today might change in the future, so what’s with this media idolizing all this bullcrap. That’s right; it’s a conspiracy. The media idolizes romance because that’s what the audience wants to see. They are offering us fake escapism to enter into a fictional world where the main characters are destined to fall for each other. A drama has a progressive thought, an emotional climax, and a resolution, but our lives aren’t like that. All we get day after day are a bunch of vague anxieties that are never really resolved. Not just romance, many other genres sell because of it too. Superhero, Science fiction, anime, games all are built on top of that experience to create a fake, unrealistic world. A world in which the creator sets the rules. Rules which are meant to provide an escapism. Why superhero and fiction sells? Because it’s cool to see something which we can’t experience in real life. If that’s not the conspiracy, then I don’t know what is.

Conclusion

Social media is a conspiracy; it’s just a constant urge for attention-seeking. Others’ motives are vague and ambiguous; it could be a conspiracy too. Envy, pride, and unrequited affection are a conspiracy, too; nothing good ever comes out. People cheat and bring others down, sometimes unknowingly, while other times knowingly. Those idolized worlds shown in movies and literature are nothing but fiction. Hurting others is a conspiracy set by us for them, while we get hurt because of an unknown conspiracy. Everything is a conspiracy. If we think everything as “bad” and product of conspiracies, we won’t have anything to cling to in the end. Life will become pretty much boring. Here’s a common-sense thing, we all know exactly what to do. We know that all we need is to be more mindful of others’ opinions and not hurt them. We know cheating and plotting something behind the backs of others is wrong. We know all we need to do is stop procrastinating and do the work to get the promotion. No one can tell these things for us. These are just our little secrets. These conspiracies are metaphor for all the blames that we throw on something or someone to justify our own shortcomings.

Nothing is perfect; we are not perfect; this world is not perfect. We live 90% of our lives in absolute pain. From the start, we have been told that all we need to do is just study to get to the dream college/job. But the bitter truth is problems never end. These conspiracies exist and will always exist. Living the life you are in right now (since you are reading this article, you at least have internet and computer/phone) Living that life is a luxury too. Someone else might be living in even bad shape than you are. (wow, you just looked down on others XD Congratulations, you fell right into the conspiracy.) While stressed out, we seek instant gratification and get distracted easily. Seeking conspiracies like movies and dramas serves as an escape. (You fell right again to the trap.) All the feeling of hatred and love it’s natural you are no special everyone around you is suffering one way or the another; in that scenario, if you just cling to God or someone else you love, it’s the best feeling. Even though God might never show us their form, we can label everything good around us as God. That’s how the power of believing works. If you don’t want to believe in God just because it doesn’t exist, that’s fine your parents do exists; they are your God. It could also be someone close to you, maybe a friend of some other family member who helped you when no one else was there.

We continuously blame others’, labeling them all as conspiracies. We run away, hoping to achieve a world with no pain. And to achieve so, some even commit suicide. “I hope to be reborn with fewer problems in my next life.” Everyone who commits suicide thinks this way. It’s psychologically proven that no one is ever ready to fully accept death. And you know this is a conspiracy, too XD No one knows about the existence of the next life; this concept exists just as a means of escapism for everyone thinking of committing suicide to throw away their responsibilities. Do we really want a world without sufferings? A world without any challenges will be boring. Imagine being born as the smartest, strongest, and most beautiful person in the world. Hypothetically you will get bored as there will be nothing to do. A world void of any sufferings, a world of freedom, is that even a thing?

We can improve. We cannot improve. It’s the same uncertain cycle over and over again. That’s why the title of this article is purposely uncertain too. It’s your goal as the reader to interpret it in your own way. Just like how the real world conspiracies sound dumb similarly your shortcomings, your own conspiracies are stupid as well. It’s nothing but an impulsive escapism.

Accept the pain of working hard. Accept the troubles you go through to keep yourself happy. Accept the conspiracies. We keep escaping conspiracies while in reality we just need to accept them. Nothing is bad, no one is a bad person. Seriously, no one is a bad person not even a fraudster or a killer. What does being a bad person actually mean? Being bad to everyone? Well you can’t be bad to everyone (unless we’re talking about Psychopaths but that’s very very rare disorder). Being bad is subjective, and depends on point of time aswell. Most of the times it’s lack of communication or misinterpretation or conflicting opinions. Humans are forgetful that’s why we repeat the same mistakes again and again. We all exactly know what to do, it’s just that it takes a bit of courage to accept the change. It’s only when we stupid humans reach the lowest of the low, at that point we realize. I remember reading a Hindi doha by Kabir Das from middle school.

बुरा जो देखन मैं चला, बुरा न मिलिया कोय ।
जो दिल खोजा आपना, मुझसे बुरा न कोय ।।

I think now I finally understand what that really means. We make mistakes not because we are bad or evil but because we are forgetful. We need reminders. It could be a friend or family member commenting on our decisions. Be open to those comments. Be thankful to others. There are toxic people I agree, but they are toxic because you think them that way. And even if you are convinced someone as toxic, just let go of them adapt the new chance that only you know. Remember everyone is a hero of their own story. It could be a conspiracy true, the person might be looking down on you but it doesn’t matter. It’s actually a good thing, if while helping us they could feel happy or good about themselves, even if it comes from their fake-pride escapism tendency there’s nothing wrong about it. That’s what life is all about, seeking and spreading happiness…

References

• Welcome to the N.H.K (Novel, Manga, Anime by Tatsuhiko Takimoto)
• Neon Genesis Evangelion (Anime by Hideaki Anno)
• Devilman Crybaby (Anime & Manga by Go Nagai)
• Hunter x Hunter (Anime by Yoshihiro Togashi)
• Nicomachean Ethics (Novel by Aristotle)
• Indistractable (Novel by Nir Eyal)
• Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his years of pilgrimage (Novel by Haruki Murakami)
• Pride and Prejudice
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales
• Freud Psychoanalytic Theory