Loyalty

Loyalty is often a confusing term to me. It’s the most impressive virtue I happen to like over a period of time. All the lessons and wisdom I learnt in my formative years emphasized and stressed the importance of being loyal to the chosen perspective, philosophy or a person.

It demands absolute devotion that must withstand withering winds and sometimes guide us towards our own destruction. Being loyal to someone is a form of being innocent too, because we implicitly trust what we chose to be loyal about and do not slip or slide sideways.

I think I experienced that kind of loyalty with my childhood friends and it paved my way to look towards horizon of life. Dad used to tell me about the quality of being loyal and being a school teacher, he must have understood the concept in pious terms. But a deep rooted conviction was embedded by him within my heart that always seem to make me hesitate before looking in to the justifiable options of… wondering whether loyalty pays as we believe in someone whose integrity is questionable in terms of total moral strength.

The rapid development of life style seeding on – the – spot priorities and making ground for strategic benefits of future is the criteria to chose or rejects loyalty in the present world. Perhaps its essential to develop a killer instinct in this world where values have become Dog eat Dog. It’s like building a building a sand castle on beach before thinking of constructing an edifice. I used to feel the huge responsibility in building sand castles when I was a kid. Our home town was not near any natural water resources where abundance of sandy shores is nearby. So if we were to build a sand castle we used hunt for a place where new houses get constructed. They bring truck loads of sand and heap them near construction sites for later mixing it with cement and rocks to make it in to concrete.

And we sometimes were so lucky to avoid the wrath of the security guard. We used to scream and run and climb Sand Mountain and while climbing our little feet pushed deep in to sand and jump down and do so many unspeakably adorable things. Then we used to build sand castles with one leg buried deep in sand and while our little hands worked out in constructing conical heaps of sand castles. The castles of those who are experts used to look like Red Indian tents. After a few misadventures even my igloo looking sand castles started looking like Red Indian tents (Don’t know the right word for them)…

Yikes… I think I am veering towards another thing (I love to become a child again and hence my thinking always go towards childhood)

So… I started realizing an uneasy feeling when I exited innocence and entered life. Somehow and somewhere I used to recount what I have done so confidently in the name of loyalty and happened to encounter unpredictable and adverse results. I even become so brash in teaching a father figure in one of my jobs about being pragmatic and practical about being loyal towards what we call CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION in a job. That gentleman looked at me with pain in his eyes as he was at the verge of retirement and served his employer loyally, but suddenly realized why certain incomprehensible events in his career where he was made a scapegoat.

Then I turned my attention towards loyalty in personal relations.

I am and I have been and I shall be loyal in personal relations… with my friends and even those whom I did not meet as well on net. What I meant is my healthy respect towards their faith in me was never disrespected. It’s not about my endeavors to reach my own smug self esteem, but somehow I never felt the need or relevance.

Another aspect that deeply affected me is love affairs. I thought one must be loyal to someone he loves. I still believe in that principle despite I find events in which one could not agree more to be flexible and look towards life and its better opportunities.

When I happen to share the grief of my friends who were mercilessly dumped by their lovers I used to tell them that it’s a social conditioning process. That is similar to a baby trying to walk and fall and try getting up and walk… and walk and run… and… stop…

Somehow this logic of mine did not work wonders in my own life. I cannot blame those who made me feel ignored as they developed their own reality after they started differentiating the taste of sweat tears and smiles. My introspection made me see how foolish I have been in being so free and so ideal. Perhaps love is to be given no more respect than any other emotion that goes ephemeral and stays endemic. When two people forget that they are plagued by so many conflicts that rip them apart in minuscule to monumental way and yet feel the comfort of each other’s company, not thinking of anything else and suddenly realize that the sense of comfort is a fleeting moment and only realty stand before us like a fire breathing dragon… they tend to take cover…

My own mistakes are lack of ambition in materialistic development, absence of seriousness in manipulating situations towards a favorable end (through the methods are socially accepted if not morally) and most importantly… being terribly interested in horizontal development and not in vertical growth where as my career and financial freedom and stability is concerned.

I thought my loyalty in the name of genuine concern towards someone I love would be the strongest foundation towards my emotional growth. But for a moment if I shun all of it and go reckless in living for the moment… Nahh.. I am incapable of doing that…

So…what is left for me to look at today… after being bitten by loyalty bug???

Well… nothing much… I still have my freedom to be happy in my moronic ways. I do retain the strength to be optimistic about getting my love back. I prepare myself to be able to help out in smaller ways. And… I look forward to see what comes out of my faith in being loyal… in future...

On seond thoughts... I wish to confess something... I am not loyal to my parents....