Hey, what’s up!
This innocuous greeting has a deep subconscious undertone. By default we expect people to have something going on. And whilst it’s normal to respond with “oh same old” or “nothing much”, that response has a hint of dejection – as if we wish we had something new or exciting going on, but sadly it’s not the case.
People do not even think when they ask “what’s up”. There is no bad intent. Its just natural. Or has become natural, for us to look for something novel or interesting. As that’s what worthy of anyone’s time and life to us.
And precisely that chase of novelty at the most subtle level makes us dive into a bottomless pit. Exhausting and frustrating many of us. Many burn out in the chase to have something up. Expectations incessantly keep increasing. One is never happy for long. For anything new becomes old soon enough. Anything interesting now becomes boring in sometime, in short time. In shorter time now – with the speed at which materialism is accelerating, the shelf life of newness is shortening by the moment. And hence our need to move on is not just a constant but getting faster…
Imagine you are on a treadmill. And every minute it doubles it speed by default. Starts at 3 per hour, next minute 6, next minute 12, then 24, then 48, after that 96. And you have taken the red bull of social media. You are super charged up… And so are all your friends and family who are on similar treadmills next to you. And millions of others are on the same. To keep running seems natural. Your body is built to walk and not stand still. Getting down of the treadmill hence seems unnatural. But you also cannot slow the pace without feeling defeated. As your treadmill won’t show the new reading that you want to reach and share… You feel exhausted at times, depressed even when you can’t meet your running speed target which you aim for looking at others… So you keep running. With your breath panting. Face sweating. Heart palpitating. Throat drying. Legs shaking. And the incremental joys with every new record on the treadmill being lesser or not even the feeling what you aspired…
That is exactly how our minds have become with the hey, what’s new, what’s up syndrome.
There are schools of Indian philosophies which believe in letting go and living life without desires (Jainism, Buddhism) and really spending time in meditation or just experiencing things as they happen. But than that’s not how we are mentally built. We cannot just be idle but have to do something. So by default we will keep moving. Hence Bhagwad Gita has the whole Karma Yog… So that we better work with some direction of divinity & with no desires of result… Basically cut ourself off from that need to achieve… Just work or act as a means to someone’s end – be a nimmit.
The common thread of those philosophies is to basically take you away from yearning the highs on the treadmill, whilst you still keep walking on it by default.
The other issue also is that now we don’t have the existential challenges that our early ancestors living in the jungle had… So now we have the time and head space to go for experiences – not worry for food or becoming someone’s food. But our minds have not evolved at that pace to become as self sufficient. We are still dependant on external stimuli to keep us happy… And so the monkey’s mind now has the intellect of our human brain. And to avoid boredom some of us end up doing things that generally destroy us… Getting hooked to drugs, alcohol or dangerous activities. Just for thrills or the highs they bring…
The solution… Either take up a challenge to work towards… As boring as it sounds – get married, have kids, raise – provide – nurture a family… pick a cause and go for it… Buy a home, tie yourself to a committed investment… Basically bind yourself so that you don’t have that time or resources to fritter away…
Or the more difficult aspect… Learn to enjoy life as it is… Not chasing newness even remotely all the time. Curbing the urge to post every new thing in your like and tracking those likes and comments. Or tracking, liking and posting on every person’s similar posts for that matter. Essentially being able to live in peace with what we today call mundane and boring. With nothing new up!
And maybe next time when we meet people, instead of instinctively asking hey what’s up, what’s new… We just remain happy with hi, how are you 🙂
Inside VG... 