I AM A SHEEP

According to the ninth edition of The Concise Oxford Dictionary, ‘sheep’ also means ‘a bashful, defenseless, or easily-led person’. Bashful means ‘shy, diffident and self-conscious’. Generally we remember the poor animal when we hear this word. But there are many humans that exactly fit to the meaning of the word as I outlined in the first sentence of this account. I am frank enough to accept that I am a sheep. You do not readily agree with me if I simply assume myself as such. I try to explain my point.

The word ‘shy’: For the last twenty eight years I have been seeing a number of beautiful girls and women in the society around me, be it on roads, trains, buses, schools, offices, cinemas, auditoria and so on. I was impressed by their beauty and it means I have a feeling in me when I see something. This shows that I am a considerable human being because I have feelings. Even an animal does have feelings. What is the difference between it and me? The wise people say that ‘a human being expresses his feelings’. But I never expressed my feelings to any one of these symbols of living beauty around me for it looks ‘odd’. Who told that it seems to be ‘odd’; the bold ‘tradition’. Yea, tradition told me ‘you should not appreciate every human beauty in a bold and uncivilized manner. You have to study a lot about the character of the person and the circumstances she is involved in before taking that initiative. You would be considered to be a silly and shallow person if you appreciate everybody based on your intuition or impulse. This means you have to be smart and analytical. That means you have to be strategic”. This is how I remained dumb over the years. Dumbness is similar to shyness.

The word ‘diffident’: This word applies to such people who are not self-confident and assertive in their thought and behavior. In other words, one symbolizing this adjective looks complacent, reticent and modest. In my childhood, a beautiful girl attracted my heart and so became a part of me. I mean I thought she was mine and so I went dreamy and possessive about her. I began to send the positive signals from my side implying that she meant a lot to me. She too reciprocated the same. It could be for courtesy sake, if you like to think so. In the field of admiration, silly becomes serious in course of time. So, she too gradually went deep in admiration toward me. That means we fell in love, a nice word to hear and a hard one to experience in reality. Exchange of looks was going on, naturally. One day I knew that her marriage was fixed with some other male fellow. Because I am part of a society, which intends to see me as a good boy, I liked to be diffident in my thought and behavior. I lacked self-confidence to believe that she was really in love with me and so I could not dare meet her. I remained a modest and reticent boy, somebody that never dares to tread the untrodden path. Eventually, she married him and became his wife. What about my admiration for her? Yea, one can’t win other’s love when one remains traditional. Love belongs to humans. I was not a human being. I follow what others said and did. I try to be reserved and complacent to please the interests of the society. So, I am ‘diffident’.

The word ‘self-conscious’: One symbolizing this quality (adjective) mostly tries to remain in one’s own fears and thoughts in relation to the external and internal entities. By entities I mean both visible and invisible and both ‘self’ and ‘the other’. When I walk on the road, I mostly avoid looking into the faces of the beautiful girls and women. If I look at them they think that they are great and I am inferior to them. It is not the case with the moderate or ordinary ones. If we look at them, they don’t mind it for they take it as ‘common’. When I talk to the beautiful girls and women, I try to be very refined and elegant in my speech and mannerism for beauty is something one needs to deal with carefully or tactfully as per the known history of the society around us. Actually what I feel inwardly is “why can’t you accept me if I behave somewhat informally and amicably with you. Does it mean that I am superficial and inferior in my philosophy of life and attitude? You prefer ‘action’ from me and so I avoid ‘reality’ acting very smart with you”. In this way I am trying to be self-conscious. How should I behave to please them? What should not I do not to hurt them? How does the society consider it if I behave normally with them? What are the accepted ways of behavior while dealing with them? The more I pretend, the more I gain their acceptance or appreciation as a human being and so why should I follow the other way and invite the risk on my own? When I worry much about my safety as a person, I can’t be true in my behavior toward others and that is what I am doing; “acting well”. The society likes me as long as I remain so. They consider me ‘sensitive’ and ‘sensible’ as long as I am ‘self-conscious’. The very moment I deviate from this norm, I look ‘abnormal’ or ‘mystic’ or ‘crazy’ or ‘strange’ or ‘mad’ or ‘irrational’ or ‘shameless’ or ‘uncivilized’ to other ‘wise’ people of this society. That is how real feelings and expressions remain within the hearts of many. When we refine ourselves, we can see the bright facet of the human life on earth where we can be acceptably frank, admirably honest, considerably realistic and notably human. I do not think I can see such a society in my lifetime.

I am defenseless while I talk about these larger issues of the society and the broader perspectives of the human outlook toward the entities of the world. Eighty percent of the present population looks modern in appearance and lifestyles but not at heart and it is what hurts me as a person and observer of the trends of the society. I follow the path instructed or dictated by others for I am supposed to live peacefully accepting the irrational norms of the orthodox society around me. I have no choice to follow the path of definitions and refinements devised and desired by me as a thoughtful and visionary human being. Thus I remain an easily-led person, somebody that can’t help praising the lies proclaimed by the social heads, somebody that can’t question the untruth of a faith being blindly followed by many, somebody that tries to please others acting on a daily basis and somebody that tries to kill his distinct ‘self’ to be a part of ‘others’ that follow the ‘conventional’, which is against the ‘individualistic’.

Aren’t I a sheep?

Datla Chiranjeevi Raju