Change the World Not

What do you need to do to change things around yourself? Other than read this blog entry, I mean.

Have you ever noticed that a huge percentage of people in every nook and corner talk about problems prevailing in our surroundings and have breathless descriptions of changes that they would like to see.  There are dozens upon dozens of problems to choose from on any media source you choose from. At this point it’s getting a little ridiculous; per [Sturgeon’s Law]; you don’t need to bother much about changing the world.

I’ve tried to get people to do things, in a way which I feel is right, at various points in my life. And I’ve always failed. Utterly and completely. Eventually, I realized that the problem wasn’t me. Most of us tend to seek convenient ways to do things.

Searching for the right way to go, I got acquainted with this remarkable organization called [SPIC MACAY]. It is doing a brilliant job of promoting Indian classical music and culture across the globe. In early days of my association with this movement, a question always crossed my mind…What’s the whole point of this? The responses which I got from most of the people back then was like… because it’s OUR CULTURE or because OUR CULTURE IS  THEBEST. Those were all the unsatisfying responses and made me feel like SRK in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSNypuXqa1s.

Thanks to SPIC MACAY, I was exposed to an amazing world of renowned artists, which helped in understanding things that actually mattered. If I try to list down the most glit-edged characteristics of this movement, those would be:

The driving force is music and culture which is unifying as opposed to a divisive notion such as religion.

The movement runs mainly on the shoulders of youth.

It introduces you to a whole new way of living, dedicating your life to a particular thing.

I really see this as an activist’s lifestyle. We often talk about vague notions like following your passion etc. because that is a convenient way to describe it. If you see it closely, this activist’s lifestyle is about dedicating your life to solving a problem. The problem is not defined by people around you but it originates in your head. No one believed that freedom is our right until one day someone thought in his head “Hey!  We should be free.  I must do something about our freedom”. I am sure they didn’t see it as an opportunity; instead it was a problem which they wanted to solve.

We have a lot of successful people who changed the world trying to solve a problem in their head. They perceived this problem solving process as a life principle. A lot of musical instruments would have been history by now if the artists wouldn’t have decided to save them. Writing this blog or any piece of text for that matter would have been hell lot difficult if [Larry Teslar] had not decided to set the world free from modes.

I see a lot of people who talk of changing the world and do nothing. And then I see people who are solving problems which exist in their heads.  People working in the field of education because they believe that the system needs to be improved.  People working for equal opportunities. People  who work for their principle are often the ones who change the world.