This is part 1 of an x-part series.
Utopia is a word commonly used to describe a perfect society, where everyone’s desires are supposedly met and no heartburn exists. The opposite is dystopia, a society where everything is bad, there is no happiness and there are overwhelming reasons for humans to complain about the status quo. In this article, I’ll address the question of what our present society is. The next article is about an imagined utopia.
The best answer to which ‘pia’ this world currently is would be neither. Neither is it one where everything is hunky-dory, nor one where everything is horrible. A pessimistic realistic point of view would be that it is closer to a dystopia than a utopia. Think about it, how much of our happiness can we actually control? How many times have you heard the phrase ‘Ok, there’s nothing you can do about it, so just be happy and move on’? Quite a lot, I’m guessing. Humans are forced to manufacture short bursts of happiness because there simply isn’t enough true and unadulterated happiness in our lives. From the time we emerge from the womb, it feels like getting plunged into a world of turmoil. As a baby, you may be suffering from something which you have no way to alleviate or communicate to the ones who can alleviate, because you cannot talk. Memories of the first year or so of our lives are not retained because long term memory doesn’t develop at that time, but if it were retained, I believe the memories would be mostly frustration about the inability to communicate and the serious limitations in our potential to do anything. We were babies after all!
As you grow up, ever since the time you step in a school (yes, even pre-school) or start interacting with other peers, there’s a sense of competition and trying to one-up others. Since everybody’s brought up that way, it seems natural and elders look upon it condescendingly as something that’s bound to happen. The 4-year old who lives next door beat you in a game. Of course, that’s the way we grow up, tasting both victory and defeat. Someone performs better than you at school and gets lauded for it. That’s meant to happen, you should try harder. All this makes sense, doesn’t it?
Except that it doesn’t in a world which wants to push for utopia. In a perfect society where everyone is happy, the concept of coming second best and getting beaten by someone shouldn’t exist. The very concept of competition is meaningless, because everyone’s equal, has a right to happiness and exercises it. Isn’t competition simply a way to make someone more happy at the expense of someone else? In a utopian society, would there be any space for tennis, for example, where there’s always a guy winning and the guy on the other side of the net losing. There should be no losses in utopia. The very concept of striving to be better and learning from your mistakes shouldn’t be there because hey, there are no mistakes and everyone’s contented. After all, how do you define a mistake? Something that’s not acceptable by the general human consensus. Hitting the ball out of court is not acceptable because it makes you lose the rally, and so that’s a mistake. In utopia, even if you hit the ball outside, there would be no problem of any conceivable type and you and everyone else would still merrily go about your and everyone else’s lives.
As you reach the final years of school, you need to study and get into a good college. Again, why? The answer would be that getting into a good college would give you a better quality of education and would make you happier. And how is this ‘quality of education’ thing defined? Firstly, the curriculum is good. It teaches you what you need to fit nicely into industry or higher studies or whatever you want to do. Secondly, classes follow a regular schedule and a student can expect to get a complete body of knowledge by the end of a semester. Thirdly, the knowledge is imparted by people who are experts in that field of knowledge, and, experts in the field of imparting knowledge. This is what a good college should have. But are these really always true?
Firstly, the knowledge that you get, is it really a perfect fit for the life that’s about to come up? For the readers who have completed college, how much do you feel that some course which you took in your third year first semester is helping you in what you’re doing now? How connected are the skills which you need and use now with the skills which college trained (or attempted to train) you in? Even for those who are doing higher studies, what fraction of your undergraduate knowledge do you feel has been very relevant to what you’re working on? I dare you to say a third. Let’s face it, the knowledge gained in high school and undergrad is riddled with the bullet holes of useless and additionally burdensome stuff which you won’t be needing. Secondly, classes may follow a regular schedule, but how much of a regular schedule did you follow? At the end of the semester, for how many courses did you feel that you truly learnt something great and your knowledge has reached a nice benchmark for you to store away and perhaps build on later. It doesn’t work that way, the majority struggle to just pass the exams. I am not going to talk about the third point, you are free to draw your own inferences.
After college comes professional life, marriage, retirement, old age and all that stuff. Where are you being truly happy? Do you ever feel that…
…you have a job where you perfectly fit in, love doing and do for an optimum amount of time which leaves you satisfied and refreshed, and
…a spouse who is perfect in every way, understands you through and through, is a great friend and companion, never gets boring, always puts up with you but without sacrificing his/her own personality, is great in bed, and
…kids who adore you and lead wonderful lives, never coming to you crying and always being contented, and
…enough money to get exactly what you want and an internal regulation mechanism which optimally balances your work and leisure, and
…no diseases, aches or bodily or mental shortcomings, and…
…a perfect life in old age, where you’re always smiling, doing meaningful stuff which you like and finally dying without any suffering at an ideal time, and
…so on ?
You don’t feel any of these things. And yet, all that I mentioned should be there in a perfect society where everyone’s always happy and in perfect harmony with everyone else. What’s so difficult about that?
Except that it doesn’t happen! We hate our jobs. Don’t get along with so-called loved ones. Suffer from debilitating diseases. Struggle before dying. In general, make a whole goddamn mess of life without anything to truly and deeply smile from within about. And that’s why people like to crack jokes and have fun, it helps them to lose themselves in moments of happiness in a world and society where you can never be completely and unconditionally happy.
Taking a cue from Pink Floyd’s Goodbye Blue Sky, here’s what I’d like to ask you:
Di-di-di-did you feel you’re satisfied?
Di-di-di-did you feel your happiness?
Di-di-di-did you ever wonder why you can’t be truly happy when the promise of a nice, better world unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?
I would now like to return to the definitions for utopia and dystopia. Is everyone’s desires met in this world of ours? Not by the wildest and most uncivil and barbarous stretch of imagination. People crave for more, get envious of others, feel pain and sadness and often feel they are underachieving. People get frustrated and disgusted and go about their lives with tense and disturbed minds. And then there are the small matters of Africa being poor, India being overpopulated, the ISIS spreading its tentacles and weather patterns changing for the worse. Which brings me to the definition of dystopia. Won’t you now say that all the happiness out there is only evanescent and there are lots of reasons to complain to the guardian angel of the world about. Wouldn’t you say that we live in more of a dystopia than a utopia?
To be continued…
cobaltfolly 