2 posts in one night! Well, I'm depressed. When I'm depressed, I think. I analyze and psychoanalyze. Don't really have anyone else to talk about this, just not something I'm comfortable talking about. So why I don't I just talk about it here, where absolutely anyone in the world can see it anytime they want, even the people I am talking about? (That was sarcasm. I find it difficult to convey that when I write. Need to work on that) Anyway, the reason I'm fine with writing about it here and not talking about it to someone who knows me and would probably understand it better, is that its annonymous. Its like walking around in a big city like London or New York. There are so many people around you all that time, that almost anything you do can go by unnoticed if you want it to. Blogging is like that isn't it? You can write about anything you want to, and chances are that it'll not get discovered unless you want to. You could publicize your blog and then you'd get people to notice, but random blogs hidden away somewhere could be great places to vent. It'd be like telling the world what you thought of it, without it actually hearing.
Anyway, what I was thinking about was families. In our part of the world (the East), we have this holier than thou attitude towards the West because unlike them, we 'value' families. We make time for them, we'd do anything to keep them from breaking up, we hold on to not just immediate family but extended family too. In the West, everything's developed and all, but they lack the simple basic family values that we have. Who needs all those modern amenities, comforts and tools for development anyway. We have our family. We'd rather hold on to that than become 'Westernized'. Did you know the divorce rate in the US is 50%? :O
How much is it helping us though? I'm a die hard patriot, I try my best to convince myself that I don't ape the 'West' in any way possible and I only take what is good, and remain true to my Eastern values in all other ways. But what are 'our' values? I am yet to see a marriage that I can look at and wish I would have one like that some day. Almost all of my many many cousins have had serious marital issues, and been on the brink of divorce at least once or more. Sure, every relationship goes through bad patches, but these have been more than that. Every time this happens, the family gets together, decides that its best for the husband and wife to give it another shot, because they are practical issues to think about. Recently, a friend found out that her 30-something year old husband was cheating on her with a 19 year old. Needless to say, they separated. The husband refuses to admit his fault, they haven't been able to talk to each other for more than 5 minutes without it turning into another huge fight, and yet the families are meeting to discuss reconciliation. 'Practical' issues they say. How will the woman live by herself? How will she raise their young sons alone? What will people say? I'm not being idealistic. I don't need to have a child of my own to know that being a single mom will be extremely difficult, but when I consider the other option, living once as more as the wife of such a man, I would rather we faced that than risk being burned again.
What are families really? People that love you and support you all the time? People you can come back to anytime you want, and know that they'll still care if not understand. Why then in our part of the world, do we have this uniform notion of the ideal size of a family, the ideal composition (father, mother, son, daughter), ideal relationships, ideal roles and all the rest?I have an amazing family at home, but I also consider some of my friends to be family. If my parents were to split up tomorrow, I'd still consider them both family. How many of our families are really together because of the right reasons, and not just because they're afraid of what people will say? Does marriage really make sense? Are there any truly happy families?
I'm happy living at home with my family right now because I know that if I want, I can go off by myself for 6 months, a year, 2 years etc. What happens when I get married and have kids? I won't be able to do that then. Imagine living with the same people for all your life, knowing that there is no escape and 'till death do us part' holds firm? I haven't yet met a person-man or woman- that I think I could make marriage work with. I honestly don't see it happening either. Right now, I'm very disillusioned with the idea anyway. Would we be abandoning our culture and aping the West if we realized that we do really have one life to live and that we need to be free to spend it with whom we liked? But then again, can you really imagine a society without families?
These are very random thoughts. I realize there is no coherance of any sort. I might even be contradicting myself in places. I plead mental instability.
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