“Stop preaching… its only been a week”, Jainee sighed in exasperation recently when I was giving her the pearls of my wisdom on not being hooked to social media… After all, like my last name sake – who was just a little bit more famous, I was doing my own “experiments with truth” on myself, by being off the digital social grid – i.e. no FB, no group watsapp and no Instagram…
And by Jainee’s benchmarks – as my spouse my toughest critic, I felt I was doing pretty well… It was a different story that it had only been a week (so you see how low Jainee’s benchmarks are for me) and she had asked me to come on instagram herself so that I can view her stories and keep myself abreast about her day rather than pick her mind irritatingly later on 🙂
I had also found the time to write 3 blogs in that week… which was a good thing, but also lead to an issue – I now did not have a medium to share it with the world… I shared my quandary with Jainee and she latched on to the chance to pay me back… She reminded me of what I always used to tell her… That I write what I like, how I like it and not based on what will please anyone… my freedom of speech was for my joy and not dependent on or needs an audience… So now why did the lack of audience matter?
This off the digital social grid idea, inadvertently had put my beliefs about my driver’s of expression to test… And they were failing…
I have always believed freedom of speech and expression is not a social one – but an individual one… and its a right to express, not the one to be heard…. it does not entitle anyone the right to have an audience i.e. there is no requirement that one should get an audience to hear them out…
The universal definition of freedom of speech is that it’s a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction.
So in there too, there is no mention of any sort of a right to have an audience… It mentions that there should be no fear of severe retribution from anyone if the expression isn’t liked… But there is no inherent right of being heard, acknowledged or having anyone to receive the articulation…
But technically in support of my current feelings of missing an audience, isn’t that universal freedom of speech definition incomplete… Speech or expression is for communication… Communication is a 2 party process… A conveyer and a recipient… Irrespective of the response of the recipient, an expression without a recipient is incomplete and purposeless…
And think about it… when we talk about someone infringing on our freedom of expression we do cover any attempt to control the channels to reach to an audience… So things like buying out news papers, influencing net neutrality, taking controlling stake in news channels, controlling our social media feeds… Basically whatever the channel is to get an audience… when is being muzzled or obstructed, we call it an infringement on our freedom to speech and expression… Access to audience (disregarding their feedback) is hence in our mind an inherent part of the freedom…
But hold on, my beliefs in the independence of my expressions wasn’t so shallow… over 20 years I had built that belief and had been happy with it…
I was inspired by the parable about the famed singer Tansen and Moghul emperor Akbar… Akbar was so impressed with Tansen that he wondered who was and how did Tansen’s guru sing… He pestered Tansen to take him to his guru, which Tansen agreed on the condition that Akbar would come as a commoner and not disturb his guru who resided in the jungle… They go in the woods and there Akbar observed the guru singing his heart out oblivious to every thing and any one… And he was out of the world – levels beyond Tansen… Akbar asked Tansen why there was such a difference between him and his guru… To which Tansen simply said that he sang for the emperor, his guru sang for no one (or for his god or purely for his love of music)…
The idea is… Which is still my core belief… That things we do with our heart, honestly for the love of it and not to please anyone, we do best and to our utmost satisfaction… Things done to earn praise and acceptance of others are temporal, dependant for their sustenance on external parties and less intense in the joys they can give us… Hence hobbies should be audience agnostic… And hence so is my writing…
Whilst even now I don’t write for any one, why do I then need the feel to distribute it to an audience… If I loved singing, wouldn’t I be happy singing alone in a bathroom or a concert hall – whether anyone is listening or not… Then why the need to share via social media?
Our freedom of expression’s sole purpose should be to vent out for the sake of venting out… Sharing out for an audience is propaganda or self promotion…
But Jainee questioned – what do we call someone speaking to themselves in an empty room… why even put up thoughts in a written blog… why put them up on a website… just think and keep it to yourself if you are indifferent to people reading or not…
I still don’t know – earlier when I used to write, I used to only share it with my closest friends… in fact my earliest poems, I used to just show it to my tuition teacher and no one else… so why do I now have this wanting to share my work with an audience… Is it because earlier I did not have the medium.. or now I have got used to it? or now am more confident of myself? After all technically even before, sharing with one person was getting an audience… so the need was always there…
Guess this to me is a proof of fact that freedom of expression is a slave and captive of the need to have an audience and not independent of it…
Anything said or shared to the contrary is not normal… the joys of enjoying your expression in solitude is probably utopian… And so you are reading this after getting a watsapp message or via an FB or Instagram or Twitter feed… I am a normal Gandhi, not Mahatama Gandhi (who too published a book for his experiments with truth) 🙂
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