Stigmatter - Thought(s) that Matter(s)

If you ask someone, what’s life made up of, they’d probably say something like, it’s a journey filled with ups and downs or it’s about living till death comes along. However, this merely forms the meaning of life in general, but what is it really made up of? What forms the essence of every moment you are living? What drives you to move ahead and go through changes? Simple - Experiences. I don’t think life can be explained more precisely and elaborately than with the experiences we go through.

Every aspect of our living consciousness revolves around what we experience. We crave for newer, better, more fascinating and comforting experiences all our lives. All the wants we have as human beings are about wanting to experience something. Be it a bigger home, a more fit body or a bungee jump from the Eiffel tower! It’s amazing how all the stuff we want to do or have can be summed up in one word, experience.

It’s also interesting to notice that we totally love moving from one experience to another, and keep on enchanting our senses in the process. The same experience over and over again, becomes monotonous and starts to ring the boredom bell. Hence, we go from one want to another, not because we didn’t get satisfied, but because the want to experience something much better pushes us forward. The biggest example of this can be found in the advertising industry - what do those ad folks actually sell? Are they selling you the product? No! Of course not! They are selling you an ‘experience’ that they want you to have at a cost. They are enticing you with dreams that you would love to turn to reality. It’s all about having that feel good factor about experiencing something that would make you happy. When an individual buys a Ferrari, he isn’t buying cuz its engine is sophisticated or its got multi-point injection fuel system, but rather cuz he wants to experience the speed, the feeling of owning a Ferrari, the want to be admired and looked upon by others.

I am not trying to prove anything here, as such wants exist in all of us. The only point I’d like to make is, keeping in mind life is all about different, good and bad experiences, it’s our job to choose the right ones. That can be done by learning from the others and from your own past mistakes. If for example, someone is into drugs and comes along and tells you that the experience of sniffing cocaine is magical, it’s your responsibility to understand that even though you’d want to go through such an experience, it would do more harm than good. It all boils down to achieving experiences that help you become a better person throughout your life and avoiding the ones which only depreciate your character. Remember, what’s more difficult than choosing between the right and wrong experiences, is choosing the better one between two right ones.