Moving on to another World

Let me saunter on to another world,
Where men live lives being poverty struck,
With minds bearing hopeless hopes,
Of future, uncertain and bleak,
Yet have an indomitable will to love,
And to be loved, unperturbed by hate,
And ridiculous utterances of contempt,
Of men of our world – wicked and hostile.
And then from that another world,
I would marry a lass, tender minded,
Who would weep, on beholding pain,
Would laugh, on beholding glee,
And see honest affection with esteem,
For it has a flaw in this world,
People scarcely know its worth,
And often with dismaying disdain,
Spew insolent abuses - unkind and callous.
In that another world, I’d live eternally,
With that lass, tender minded and kind,
And with her would craft a model to follow.

Outspokenness – As a virtue and as a vice

One of the rare good things about the otherwise murkier times of crises is that they make people to think out of the box. Things that were taken for granted till then, more often than not, get a re-look. Of late I got an occasion to face a crisis of some sort when one of my acquaintances, who had been a friend till then, accused me of being a person of bad character and discovered that it is the reason why a lot of people “hate” me. Reason for this sudden denunciation was my outspoken revelation of a truth that my ex-friend didn’t want to believe in. So is outspokenness really a virtue or a vice?

In a general sense, outspokenness can be of two types – outspoken words and outspoken deeds. Honest outspokenness is quite a dangerous proposition as it is the least expected virtue in this world where people, who are politically correct, in their actions and words, are considered quintessential by the majority. But those who are honest and sincere reject any drive towards being always politically correct as they believe that a life that is not capable of outspoken expression of one’s mind is a life that is as disgraceful as disgraceful can be. In that sense, my ex-friend, by discovering that I’ve a bad character because of my outspokenness, has given me a great compliment. It is because it is a known fact that we, human beings, are not able to live a life by making everyone around us happy. And if there is someone who has been successful in leading such a life, it means that he/she has never spoken his/her mind and has always led a life shying away from speaking out the hard truth out of sheer pusillanimity. And friends, make no mistake, that is a dishonourable life. It is a life that is as dishonourable a life as that of a politician who is never free to speak up his mind and always has to agree to the decision of the party to which he/she owes allegiance to, irrespective of whether he/she personally believes in that or not. And if this argument appeals to you, then you have to accept that outspokenness is definitely a virtue. So by saying that some people hate me, my ex-friend has declared to this world that I have been living a courageous life, speaking hard truths, by declining to get bogged down by this society’s call for being always politically correct.

Outspokenness in deeds finds its most perceptible expression in affection and sincerity in relationships. Times have become so rude that pure and outspoken expression of affection is being treated as a dreadful thing. Emergence of nuclear family has made personal spaces of people quite narrow and hence they have time only for their immediate family. Therefore any expression of outspoken affection by people, other than the immediate family, is being considered as an annoying intrusion and as a vice that need to be defeated by hook or by crook. Gone are days where affection of candid nature has been widely appreciated and now what people and the society expect is, what I call, “restricted sincerity” that is superficial and superfluous. And it is not for those who believe that outspokenness is a virtue, but is for those who believe in the virtuousness of tact and political correctness. So the society and its people have started seeing people with outspoken affection in a way Satan sees the holy cross. To drive affectionate folks away, people will avoid them, hurt them, humiliate them and will ostracise them from their vicinity as if he/she is an outcast deserving nothing but scorn, contempt and absolute disdain. Here, for the person who shows candid affection, outspokenness is a virtue while for the person who believes in the supremacy of tact, outspokenness is a ludicrous vice. 

So a sensible conclusion to which we can arrive is that outspokenness can be a virtue or a vice based on the intention with which it is practised. If you are being outspoken with the sole intention of doing good to someone or to express an ultimate truth, though rude it may sound, then you are practising something that is virtuous. At the same time if you are outspoken with malevolence in your mind, then your outspokenness is a vice that should be curtailed if you wish to live a life of self esteem. And now a spare of thought for my ex-friend who has given me an occasion to meander in thoughts through which I have never before travelled. Hopefully he/she will continue to live in denial to the outspoken truth that I’ve expressed, because if at any time that person would discover the truth himself/herself, he/she would feel profound grief to have lived on for a lot of days on false beliefs and mistaken convictions. 

To all those people who have been travelling the less travelled path of outspokenness, I would like to remind you that there are not many roses in your path. You are swimming against the tide, challenging a world that would consider you as a moron, destined to doom; moving against so called “worthy” practices of tact, restricted sincerity and superficial affection with which this world is rather obsessed with. So appreciations are not going to come your way, but spears of vilifications, diatribes and denunciations. And again, those who stir up a hornet’s nest can hardly complain about being stung, isn’t it?

(Republished from Vox SEO, the SEO writing forum in Calpine Technologies)