The Psychology of Change and Fear.

Am not a qualified professional to comment on the below but would like to give an insight on to what triggers each of these emotions and how we perceive them and what the society perceives of them. This is in relevance to the recent hot topics on terrorism and religion.

Let's start with fear: when one of us walks by the side of the road and suddenly a dog jumps on you and bites, it leaves an unforgettable impression of fear and you freakout the moment you see a dog let that be a pet or trained or a street dog.

Now that doesn't mean all dogs are bad and all dogs will bite you or only street dogs bite you and not the pet ones. Some dogs by their actions look friendly and some scare you by their appearance and both of them cannot be trusted which is what your fear makes you believe.

This fear when shared or experienced to another individual leaves just as an impression and fear of dogs. Now we also have other animals which bite but we emphasise more on the dogs and you know why.

The same applies to terrorism, if one rotten individual of the society has killed a few it would lead to a fear among the rest whenever they hear, confront or see someone.

A general psychosis should be established before we judge anyone and say someone is religious or secular.

Now coming to change: change is good and we perceive change as coming of age or times. When a change is taken by an individual which is perceived as pretty good by that individual might turn out to be the worst to the people around or pretty helpful.

However when it comes to religion which I believe is an institution that has gotten so rooted into our system that we believe that our religion is much better and ideological than others rather than embracing the finer points on each side we sit to judge and jump at the very context of a finger raising against ours.

When this very fabric is disturbed where we induce fanaticism saying what you see around is polluting the existence of ones religion and some change has to be introduced it leads to chaos and destruction.

Now this change is dangerous, there is no concept called innocence being brainwashed, there was never an innocence in the first place, the fanaticism was already existing which was slowly fed by the society and someone just brought in a change of view.

So in the end it all comes down to how you were brought up, what values are induced in you, what teachings of your religion actually got stuck in you and what change are you willing to observe.

Now being an illiterate or a literate would not change the above dynamics or the thought process as here this involves the psychology of the individual.

Disclaimer: this is just one individuals opinion and if you disagree i'd say don't eat more than you can chew.

The unfair obsession with fairness - I

To start with 'We Indians are very racist, racism is ingrained in us' period.

Saying which racism is not just in India, its the world over but ironically there they refer to different races and discriminate but whereas here in India we all belong to the same race and still get discriminated.

We are grandly (mis) quoted as the land of colours. All our festivals, our celebrations, ceremonies are so colourful and so energetic that they are most joyful to participate in and watch. Colours to us Indians represent Grandeur, it represents richness, it represents happiness and it represents the purity that we carry in any celebration or life's moments.

However when it comes to the colour of us indians skin we see everyone taking sides, basking for fair skin, attempting to get one, calling names to the dark one and what not.

Our country has a long history and obsession with the skin colour, owing to the caste system and culture .. but again I also wonder whether this preference to fair skin is from our natural instinct towards white vs black, day vs night, good vs bad. Or is it due to the preconceived notion, created by hundreds of years of colonial rule, the relative success of western whites over rest of the world.

Whatever that has caused this mindset is now slowly destroying lives, confidence and much to which is subjected to the unfair pressure by peer groups, magazines, billboards and TV adverts that perpetuate the idea that fair is the ideal.

Appearances should not be skin based.

This colour tone madness is so rampant especially for those seeking Grooms in India that i feel that our insensitively saturated society has successfully found means to just make a woman guilty for how she looks and have her silenced and inferior to her spouse,

This having said is not just here in India this is everywhere where such misconceptions lead to a generation feel guilty resulting in underpayment and belittlement, to forced marriages, genital mutilation, veiled, imprisoned and whatnot, just depends to what country you look and it becomes more or less obvious… that we Humans have successfully dehumanised ourselves.

Picture Courtesy: http://www.theindependentindia.com/