The Bubble: The family of missing selves

...previous chapter The Bubble: The man

“What about me?’ Society at large disapproves of this question being asked by its member. ‘A life lived for others is a life worth living.’ It says. And it may be right.

What I want to ask is- no matter how selfless you become can you stop eating? Even if you attempt it how long can you preserve you selflessness when deprived of the food. Even serving others need energy. It needs something to be left in ‘self’ so that you can serve others.

The understanding of the idea becomes even more challenging when the idea of selflessness itself is borrowed or forced. You do not know what its goal is. You do not know why you are doing what you are doing. You act in a certain way because you believe people around you expect you to do so. Or, someone before you, in the same position, has done so.

A father is expected to earn to feed those who are dependent on him. A mother is expected to cook and care others in the family. A son or daughter, till the time he or she doesn’t gain the role a father or mother respectively, is expected to obey who have come before him in this discussion and on this earth.

Everyone is expected to survive while fulfilling their duty of one’s role. The system seems perfect. Even if I mention that this system does not recognise the existence of individual members beyond their assigned roles, it would fail to sink into most people. I am not really sure if it is because system appears to be perfect to them or because they are so used to it that they cannot imagine their existence beyond it.

Please do not misinterpret this. I do not mean that the family should be undesirable to ‘self’ - i.e. here an individual’s desires, or self can only exist sans this family. In fact, I am worried because this system makes us believe that for a meaningful relation to exist an individual has to sacrifice itself.

‘What about me?’ It is a question asked people who thing about oneself. People with personal ambitions. People need to voluntarily think about oneself, have personal ambitions because lack these affect the intellect in the same way as lack of sufficient food does to body. Lack of self over a period of time leads to intellectual malnutrition. Also, I say voluntarily because involuntarily our or brain always does it for us and then ‘self’ shows its presence unexpected ways.

The story of many households and it depressing picture, if you see it so, is the story of this ‘intellectual malnutrition’ and ‘unexpected ways’ of ‘self’ showing its presence.