As my professor quoted Jean Jacques Rousseau's romantic ideals of the "noble savage" through which he opined that the savage is the best form of living and those caught up in development have been "corrupted by Civilization" , she re-emphasised on the idea of romantic primitivism, How we are taught in our school about our "pristine" villages, how a sense of aesthetic feeling was paired with them. She looked a little frustrated as she asked " Why do we always study tribes? Why not people around us? As though they are any different from what we were before " . We very well practice these romantic ideals. We do look at these beautiful places as our escape. As she mentioned "Glamping"- that is, Glamorous camping, she reiterated us with the fact that we, have always seen the beautiful part of it and never have we faced the shortcomings of living in villages or forests.
It struck to me suddenly, I do romanticize the rural setup, and how did it strike?
I have always dreamt of growing up and doing something great in the field of education for the unprivileged.Since I consider myself a not- so- happy "subject" of this education, my ambition got strengthened. I attached myself emotionally to this big life goal. I would always imagine myself playing with kids or teaching them art.
The twist here is, for the first time in life I asked myself "Did I ever look at all of this without the rural setup? ", Only then I realized that I attach myself as much to my romantic ideals of villages as much as I do to my ambition. I never let the thought of the kids from these places studying in AC classrooms seep into my mind. It was always the old crooked classrooms with a lot of trees which I realized had an aesthetic appeal to me.
"I am not as good as my intentions" I realized.
"Would I like those kids who deserve everything as much as others to go to AC classrooms? Can I take it if they start rebuilding their houses into safer and more comfortable modern ones? Who am I to stop it when it happens , I have only known about how pretty their present living spaces look but not the comforts they couldn't provide. Can we take it when they grow to become equal players in this world? "
As these questions flashed through powdering my beliefs and ideas, I thought about us. How we love to help our friends, but can we take it if they surpass us?
What is it that is stopping us, from being so nice? Do we shrug it off saying that "it's human nature" Or do we work on it?
Are we good enough to others or is it just that we are convincing ourselves that we are?
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