Hopefully everyone reading this must have seen the 2009 blockbuster movie Avatar. For those who haven’t had chance to watch it till now, let me give you a quick summary what this movie is about (not actually about the movie but about things that I will highlight later in thui article) . Jake Sully, a physically challenged person confined to wheelchair, with help of modern technology and machines could live inside ( well almost kind of live if not exactly ) body of another Engineered species from a different planet. But more importantly, he could not just walk, but run, jump, climb and dance.
And this Engineered species was his “Avatar” that was free from weaknesses he actually possessed, that was what he wanted in real life. He wanted to spend his entire life in the body of this Engineered Avatar because it was something that helped him live his dreams hiding his real weakness.
So now you must be wondering why all of a sudden I am talking about a movie that is almost a decade old now. What it has got to do with this post ?
Well I feel its not just Jake Sully alone who wants to spend his entire life in a different Avatar, but we all do. We all have our weaknesses and we just want something that helps us forget this and live in a different Avatar even if its not real. Jake had machines that helped him do this but what have we got ? To some extent we I can say it’s social media that presents a completely different Avatar for us that is so unlike ourselves.
What we are in real is different from what we are on social media. Like Jake we want to run from our weakness and live in a Avatar that helps us hide this weakness. I may be a loner, I may hate crowd around myself but on social media I am hungry to be surrounded by people and be the talk of the town, I want to hear things from people that would please me. But what do these words mean and from those people who themselves are living in a different Avatar ? How do I know what they are saying is same as they or their Avatar who has to be pleasing always.
Ask people to drop their Avatar and say things as they would say in reality and it would be just like what happened with the recently forgotten sensation Sarahah. It was meant for positive feedback ( supposedly ) but turned out best way to abuse, demoralise people. Envy, jealousy, hatered etc are all our weaknesses but instead of trying to overcome this we chose a Avatar that hides this inside us and present ourselves as the purest soul that ever lived in this world. This Avatar is only good for hiding our weaknesses but not killing, removing or eradicating them for ever. Otherwise Sarahah is just a example of what we might do if our Avatar is not real.
So what we need is to be the Avatar we want to be. We and our Avatar should be same and one. We should be our Avatar and our Avatar should be us. We must try to overcome our weaknesses and not try to hide them while we are choosing a different Avatar. So choose a Avatar you like and be it rather than showing it. Because only one can survive in the long run. Even Jake in the end became what his Avatar was and then there was just one Jake. So hopefully next time our Avatar and we will be one.