The World

The world, what do we think about the world? Is the world big, or is it getting smaller through globalisation? We look at the physical world around us, and some of us may find that the world is vast, there is simply not enough time for us to finish explore the world around us. But how about our individual worlds? We each have our own world, the invisible world that only the individual can see, or perceive. There is of course, an invisible world around u also, but that's another story.

I have been thinking about the 'invisible world' of the individuals. But before I carry on any further, let's define this invisible world. It's actually the world which we perceive ourselves to be. It's part of the physical world we are living in. It encompasses our worldview and also our social circle, our own friends around us, the people around us. It involves our own attitude towards the physical world and the people who are living in the physical world. It's what we see, think and perceive. Basically, in short, it's our inner world.

So how does this matter to us? It matters a lot. As we grow up, our own inner world is being formed, and for anyone, there is certainly a period when our inner world take a definite and rigid form, and it refuses to change. This is the stage which I call the stage of stubbornness and formed worldview. We began to hang on to this world of ours, refusing to step out of it and expand upon it. It determines how we do things, how we handle things and who we do things with, and the kind of things we do. We begin to clinch on to the friends that we have before this stage and stubbornly refused to expand upon it, claiming that we can relate better with them, and whatever excuses you can think of.

I have three examples on hand (and I risk incurring the wrath of these people but I have to make them to demonstrate my point). All are from the same voluntary group which I'm currently serving right now. One, let's call him K, thinks that the friends in this group are his true family outside his real family and constantly tries to base his activities and life around the group. Not that I'm saying that it's wrong, but in the process, he excluded those people outside this group, and began to think negative about them. He simply refuses to further expand his world beyond that group. He resented his working place, thinks all the people in his working place are there to slack, blah blah blah (insert your own negative thoughts). The second one, let's call him S, is currently studying at a higher institute. He stubbornly refused to join in activities which will allow him to make new friends, saying that he's used to not making new friends, and everyday, his school life just involves going to school for lesson and going home after that. It's so bad to the extent that he starts thinking that everything is troublesome. The third one, let's call him A, also just recently started studying in another higher institute. But after that, he started complaining that he shouldn't have done so in the first place because the lecture timing is so long (2 hours is considered long???) and other institutes are more cheaper (you mean SIM is cheaper compared to others). The three, ASK, therefore, had demonstrated an inability to expand beyond the world they are in currently, and refused to step out of the comfort zone. Of course there is another one, let's call him H, whose world is currently his girlfriend, and nothing more. A bit pathetic to say but yes it's true (apparently changing the bedsheet seems to be becoming the norm in H's world also)

After reading all these, any readers with a sense of mind will immediately know what's wrong. The assumption that you have a world within you that is already so fixed and untranformable, is a flawed one. The world around us is constantly moving, and because of that, the world within us, our inner world has to constantly move too. It's not a case of 'oh, I have my own world, thanks a lot'. It's a case of whether your world is allowing you to live beyond yourself, to live with a sense of purpose. That is why, I chose to slowly detach myself from the world I had since sec4 and attempt to adapt myself to the different stages in my life. That's why I have chosen to no longer hold on so tightly to the voluntary group which I was called to lead any longer, because, the more I hold on to it, the more my world will be limited to the small world within that group. I found myself to be needing to engage in more dynamics than my default surrounding can offer me.

The crux of the whole issue is that are we going to get so confined and entrapped in our own default worldview that we lose sight that the box can get bigger and there are more boxes out there to be found. This article is not written to target anyone or put down anyone but to demonstrate this larger issue which we ought to consider. The world is ever expanding, but are we expanding along with it? This is one thing we ought to think about.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Parable of the 'Good Samaritan'

Of Teaching and Learning

Of Exegesis, Wedding Preparation and the Whole Lot of Things: Another Reflection