Collective perception is reality!

I have always been fascinated with life and people.I have always been fascinated about how people are so different and how different people react to different things and how people think so differently.People like it when you say 'you are different' 'you are unique' ,the craving to be someone 'different and unique' is there in everyone(I think this might be a loose sentence for which i may be vilified).But in all this 'different' there is a lot of underlying commonness(a hell lot).

I was having a drink with my boss in a restaurant and we were arguing about what is right and wrong,what is black and white and shades of grey in this world.In between he threw out the sentence 'Collective perception is reality'. I don't know what happened but I found the statement so profound i stopped arguing.Essentially all the arguments i had made till then suddenly seemed pointless.

Since then i have dwell ed on this statement a lot and have been relating daily life with this concept.This world works on collective perception,what majority agrees to - that becomes the reality.This can be applied to any concept in life - happiness,pain,love,relationships,society,right,wrong,good,bad,marriage,rules,regulations,punishment,etc ...I am not saying this is wrong,but also i am not saying this is completely right . Many a times it can be more harmful than good when the wrong realities are perceived.

Simple example - Lets take depression - why is a person depressed?Depression is very vaguely a physcological behavior where in the mind just shuts down and sort of sees no hope in life.Now what got this person in this state in the first place?Failure in love?failure in job?failure in a relationship?huge losses in money?some threatening disease? or some other reason i can't think of right now.(consult a psychologist for more reasons)

All seem valid reasons.Right?But why do you say its 'VALID'?Because people have been saying its 'valid' for ages,people have been committing 'valid' suicides for these 'valid' reasons for ages.People go into a 'valid' depression when they face these 'valid' situations.Do you see my point here?Its a collective perception which everyone so strongly believes in that the moment you get laid off or kicked out of a job or a relationship fails you go into that mode,a negative feeling is inevitably attached with these situations in life.I don't know whether these can be changed ,as these concepts or collective perceptions are so deeply rooted and moulded in our realities that everyone believes them,unless a huge perspective shift happens - which i call a 'revolution'.

Another fascinating collective perception is how life should be lived,what is success,what is failure.In life or society there are many collective perceptions or loosely 'rules' which have been made for the convenience of the smooth funcitoning of a community of people co-existing with each other like driving on the left side of the road,walking on the footpaths,honking to get someone's attention,wearing shoes or slippers to protect your feet,not throwing garbage in public places etc which have defined rules displayed every where. But there are so many undefined rules where nothing is written and still everyone perceives to be true based on some common consensus like happiness,pain,love,success,failure.


A sensitive topic and a more aggressive stance just for the sake of my argument though i still abide by the rules ,lets say 'murder' - now almost every country perceives this as a criminal offense,now why?Because you cannot kill another human being ?When you can kill so many animals on this planet why cant you kill a human being who is after all another animal on this planet?You are just another species on this planet and have the same right or no right to live on this planet as any other species.Also,this rule makes no sense in a cannibalistic society.So the collective perceptions are so strong in the human world that it is becoming increasingly difficult to live.Competition is again a by product of collective perception and what constitutes as success in this world.

I can write loads on this.But this is just food for thought when you get bored of the mundane life(I am lucky to be bored!!) and need something else to think about.After having said and done with all this, I still have to work 8 hours a day to do something 'productive' to get something called 'money' which i need to buy food to satisfy my hunger and clothes to protect me and pay my rent to have my shelter.I have to abide by the basic laws with acceptable degrees of deviation to survive in this world otherwise i will be either jailed or cooped up in a mental institution to which i will have no say once they have branded me.But you can probably use this to get a more stronger definition to your realities and probably use it in a positive way. I have great belief in the power of the human mind and what it can do.

Everything i have written is based on what i perceive to be true in my reality at this moment in time,This may change the very next minute or this may change 5 years down the lane or may not,not everyone has to agree with it and i am okay with people not agreeing with me for they perceive world in a different way.Neither am i right nor are they.All this exists till i exist in this world,after that 'nothing matters'(this is again a perception).In a more higher degree probably all this matters till the human species exists,after which it really doesnt matter.