The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be. -- Marcel Pagnol (French Dramatist) I'm sure that everyone in their recent past would have listened once to their father's story about his childhood and how they struggled but still was far better enjoyable than it is now. I for one never cared about those stories and it was a repeated storyline for me. Cut to the present day and I am almost doing the same to my kids. I have started telling them stories of how I used to play till 8PM on the streets and not watch TV. It was great with only the Black & White DD channel for TV. The wait for seeing cartoons on Sunday, Malgudi days or ஒலியும் ஒளியும் (Oliyum Oliyum) and how friends used to talk for hours face-to-face. I still feel that how TV and entertainment were destroyed by the 24/7 satellite channels, Now I see my kids doing what I did to my father's story. I can see now where the dissent and disinterest come to them. There is no connection for them to what I am saying or experiencing. It's nostalgic for me but for those who have not even seen it how can I expect them to feel it? What's that got to do with the topic - Just hang on for a short while. Being bored, I decided to open up FB after a long time and I saw countless posts on the dangers of social media and why we should go back to times before WWW was found. I find a strange contradiction that those people who are shouting against it or in fact using the same channel to propagate it. Much like the advisory warning on the cigarette packet. This made me think for some time if it is really true that as one goes old, they seem to feel that their childhood times look far better than the present? A likely answer to it would be that during childhood there is no responsibility and hence the time looked great. Come beyond childhood to job, managers, marriage, housing loans, EMI, etc then the same period looks crazy. This is what I think maybe a plausible reason. A couple of days back, when flipping on channels on the TV I stumbled upon an old movie of Woody Allen named "The midnight in Paris". This movie is the one which is credited for coining the concept called "Golden Age Syndrome" So what is it? In that movie, the protagonist says that he was born late and wishes he was born in the 1920s in Paris. His friend and arch nemesis continue to stand by his words that the protagonist's idea of a romantic imagination that the past was a better environment is flawed. The central theme of the movie for me looks like nostalgia means denial, denial of the painful present. Throughout most of history, each generation has relied on the past to provide guidance for the present and insights into the future. During the past decade and a half, the reverence of the past has been reducing drastically. The generation of today (including my kids) is over-programmed and racing against time. Their schedules are tightly packed with basketball or badminton practice, carnatic music to karate classes plus tuition for subjects after school. Then technology takes over. Even when they walk they do not observe the surroundings but are more concentrated on what comes in their 7" touch display. Slowly but certainly the ability of society to look at situations and process information has changed a lot. They no longer look at the past as a textbook for their answers as we the 80s kid did. It looks like degradation at the offset but also like moving forward as in development. For example, the melody of MSV, the interludes of Illayaraj, the unplugged of AR Rehman are all gone and replaced by pure noise with the rhythm taking over vocals in today's Tamil film music. Of course the production and quality of sound have definitely increased but I feel we have lost melody in the process. In the area of entertainment, what would have been deemed obscene and unacceptable in the past has become today’s norm. Bloodshed, Violence, Rape scenes are all very acceptable today. That makes me think that development sometimes warrants losing something in the process. The point here, if there is one to be made in this blog, is that those who continue to stare lonely at the past as a time which looks better are certainly unable to cope with the present. One thing which came out of this discussion within me was that somewhere along the line in the name of development, we have lost something. The ability to tell right from wrong has moved to a very grey area. I was brought up with a golden rule "Do onto others as you would others unto you". This has been changed to whoever has more Gold makes the rules. We find the present unsatisfactory because, in many ways, life has become unsatisfactory for almost all. Only a select few have a golden life, for all others, it is totally unsatisfactory. I would still say the Golden Age Syndrome is not flawed after all. It's striving for something better. So what is my take actually? I feel somewhere in the line we have lost happiness as a society than those who lived in the past. One main reason for it is the increased race to succeed and greed. Both these have added more complexity to society which has in the process degraded the happiness levels. I feel that at any point in time, either the past or the present or the future - the time will be nice and enjoyable only if we make it uncomplicated and simple. Let us rediscover the lost happiness and not get caught in this Golden age syndrome. Let us take a pledge to make our life simple and uncomplicated from today. Reach out to me if you want to know how to make your life simple. Now if you want to make the author happy, please leave a comment in the simplest and uncomplicated of way. Just add a "+" in the comments section to convey that you are with me - HAPPY
4 Comments
LAKSHMINARAYANAN MADHUR SRINIVASAN
5/6/2021 12:57:07
Super
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Srinivas Kanala
5/6/2021 13:14:38
+
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Jayanthi
5/6/2021 14:26:13
+
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Ranjith Bhaskaran
5/6/2021 18:26:12
Dear Vasu,
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AuthorVasudevan is a Leadership Mentor and an Executive coach. I run an online website geared towards helping creative entrepreneurs and future managers to build their dreams. Archives
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