Aspirations, Ego, Hopes and Balloons

As a child, we are all fascinated by balloons, and , true enough – call it aspirations, ego, or hopes, we all like it in Inflated states. The first time we come across one must be making the child wonder in amazement and give the feeling of `So Near, Yet So Far’. The child is not able to hold the balloon in the hand and goes around chasing it. Maybe, the colour of the balloon could be quite fascinating or even the shape.
Pick it and crush it, as is the tendency, and behold, it burst like a bomb making a big noise. There is a sudden shock, a brief pang of fear and then tears for something that was in your hand right now and now it isn’t. You feel someone has robbed you of your most fascinating toy, but it is your own actions. A loser feeling!
People lure you on the size of a balloon saying the one that I blew is bigger, and you get attracted towards it. But remember handling big balloons are more tougher than handling smaller ones, but yet we fall for it, and don’t like to face the consequences. A loser feeling!
It’s the child’s first birthday and there is celebrations, festoons, decorations around, and, not to forget the large balloons and a big one over the cake. The sizes overwhelm you, and what the invitees do is burst them, and now the child wonders – is the balloon for blowing of bursting. Something that I cherished the most, is being blown away as celebration.
The next in the balloons is a gas balloon, and we are all fascinated by such a thing that in the imaginary world, we aspire that if we le t this out with lots of string, the balloon will touch the sky or break free from the sky and we start doing so. But the balloon only goes so far and not above that how much ever sting you leave free. But when the string breaks – the balloon rockets into the sky. You watch at it with absolute despair and sorrow of having lost something dear, and as if the world has come to an end. A loser feeling!
A simple toy like a balloon that you handle as a child, and one implants the loser feeling in you at such an early stage, yet one wants to runaway, because you can buy another one and comfort yourself as being the winner.

Almighty Losers!

Of what little I know of mythology, and history – and; perhaps this is Universal, be it in Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, or Zorastrians – the gods have always been portrayed as losers!

Each of these gods and saints could have done so much more, asserted themselves, used their powers, `shown off their attitude’ and emerged winners. Instead they displayed calmness and poise, magnanimity and alacrity, humility and modesty, patience and tolerance, and the right attitude.

But populism dictates that attitude is directly proportional to aggression, that equals assertivensess, and in short that equals materialistic possessions to determine as to whether you won or lost. History is replete with such examples – of those who had the all conquering attitude and what happened to those people like Alexander, Napolean, and Hitler.

Leaders across cultures wanted to expand their kingdoms, geographical borders through conquest, subjugation, war and thus declare they were the supreme. The deep desire was to establish themselves as the almighty of the world that mattered to them. We too like to show of our attitude of being an able leader, captain, statesman.

We all love to master our environments, be it home or workplace or life. We want to be on top of everything we do, or like to perceive that we are on the top. People who do so tend to consider themselves as the masters or as greats (winners).

We all get into this trap. An Ego state that gives you the inherent qualities of being Over Ambitious, Hyper competitive, Over controlling nature, and hungry for rewards, recognition. In this state one also tends to be too resistant to feedback, too unwilling to change, and inflexible, and most important “Showing-Off” Attitude. Take a peek into history, those were the qualities of Evils and Demons.