Many people fail to realise that
roles in life takes over your life most of the time - as I said, without you
realising it or not wanting to realise it. Of course it seems almost trite to
say that we take on many roles in life – parent, worker, friend, citizen and so
on. That’s trite and is of no problem. It does not cause you or others any
problem by itself. We are naturally multi-tasking creatures even before the
word “multi-tasking” was commercialised.
However, when I say “people fail
to realise that roles in life take over their life”, I indicate something
sinister, something that is not so nice and can be monstrous most of the times.
People always have a main role that
they invest of their life in, relative to the other roles that they play. Many
a times, for the ordinary person who thinks
he is going on with his life blissfully; his main role has been forced upon him
– only because he has chosen to NOT think and/or to be a slave of others in
life.
When I was 16 and in form 4, I
was troubled by the adults’ insistence about a lot of things. Ranging from how
one should bersalam or handshake to
the “importance” of schools and higher education. Quite frankly, even then I
could not see how those things are important as they exist and even now I think
I am correct. Just to digress for a bit, take the handshake or the bersalam, which require physical contact
between your palms and the others’ palms, which is projected as an “accepted”
way of greeting someone. I used to be paranoid about it (and still am) because
I have seen many times what happens in the men’s toilets! This is over and
above all the scratching, touching here and there and then transmitting to you
the bacteria on the pretext of “good social behaviour”! To top it all, some even
go so far as to sell the idea that a firm handshake marks self-confidence – this
would put Tun Dr Mahathir as a person with no confidence as he has a gentle
handshake (which I approve).
As I was saying, in form 4, I
realised that adults are very preoccupied in “forcing” onto you roles that you
should play and some of my peer-mates were already subtly indoctrinated. Some
of the kids will play the role of bullies and some others will have to play the
role of the victim. When you belong to a group (as you must in school), you are
expected to take on certain roles too. You are either the one making fun of the
other members or the one who is being made fun of. This role stays so long as
you want to be part of the group. If you beong to one group, you cannot belong
to others. I recall I never belonged exclusively to one single group but
belonged to many, diverse groups, including the ones considered the “best” and “worst”
in school. This was a taboo but I got
away with my charm, my tongue and my understanding of perceptions of “reward
and punishment”. Ah-hem. Ah-hem. Furthermore, Geminis
get bored with uniformity and familiarity very fast!
This obsession with playing a
role to the extent of it being completely unrealistic, “unidealistic”, damaging
and mostly ludicrous continues into most people’s adult’s life. It has become
so common that this sickness has been accepted as normal, acceptable behaviour.
Hence, if you have a strong
interest in religious issues and religious studies, you are not “allowed” to
dance, sing and have a good time in public. This interest in things “godly” is
supposed to divorce you from things “worldly”. What if you happen to believe that
everything, I mean everything is indeed godly and hence, you want to talk about
God in the pub? Sure, this is going to cause discomfort on both sides, I mean
to those who say “tsk, tsk” and those other who say “er…I am feeling guilty”
but that proves my point.
BUt this sickness has reached a societal
scale such that the whole society frowns upon a “religious” person dancing on
stage. Frankly, one of my many fantasies has been to do a moon walk on stage as
an introduction or an interlude while I am talking about the beauty of the
Quran as a guidance for humankind. I am so sure, those who can’t even pronounce
“Michael Jackson” will be on my case saying I am insulting the religion! Why
must I allow these misfits to undermine my multi-talents???
It is both a blessing and a
tragedy of life that you often meet people with whom you cannot have fun
talking intellectually nor can you have fun just being silly. Often, people do
not get it that there is a big difference between choosing to be silly for fun
and being stupid as a matter of ignorance. Too many try to impose roles out of
ignorance but appear to succeed because the ignorant are usually in the majority
– victory by brawn not by brains. Are these not school bullies grown up into
positions of power?
So many will themselves into “adult
behaviour” by sheer imitating of other adults who themselves have never thought
about what is “adult behaviour”. Hence, you have ignorant adults creating
values and modes of behaviour for others to follow. Being an ardent reader of
history and human behaviour all my life, this worries me – the sub standards
set by sub-standard minds when they are in the majority! We have to wait a
lifetime or more for them to understand and mature. In the meantime, the cast
us into the role of a “rebel” or a “trouble maker” or an “impractical person”.
Needless to say, politicians are
always the best examples of what is wrong in society or examples of anomalies
of human behaviours. They not only are role-players, they are comical at that.
They become comical because they forget what they say or was asked to “stand
for” (by their advisers) when they play different roles. So, you have a
politician for example, talking about press freedom at the Press Association
dinner and then passing laws in parliament literally restricting any form of
freedom of expression. You have them talking about democracy and then denying
freedom of faith. And the list goes on. This is not surprising because, most of
what they say does not come from their heart nor from knowledge. It is all
about populist stances and protection of vested interests.
The sick obsession with dominant
role playing that I cannot understand is among Muslims. They play the “role of
Muslims” faithfully when they are in the mosque or at a “religious function” or
attending “religious rituals”. However, they become very different when they
play other dominant roles, for example at their work or business or profession
or career. For instance, is there or should there be any difference in
behaviour between a Muslim enforcement officer and a non-Muslim one? How about
Judges, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, civil servants, politicians, and so on?
Should there be a difference between a Muslim and a non-Muslim one? Or does the
role matter? Being a Muslim, I cannot help but feel completely irked whenever I
have to deal with a Muslim enforcement officer or civil servant who behaves in
a very “unIslamic way”. To me this is a
result of confusion about roles.
Anyway, there is so much more to
write on roles, especially something which, at 16 years old, I labelled as “the
victim of categorisation”. I now know that this label can be aptly applied to
analyse how we relate to classification and stereotyping of races and so on.
But that has to wait another day – if.
But for now the question is – why
are we not free to wear all the hats that we choose?
Peace !
