Senseless Urgency and Urge for Sensationalism

If you trust what almost every new parent say, every child is atleast a genius if not a prodigy. Every random motion of the child is taken as being unique, and every utterance is considered to be a word of wisdom. Every attempt made by the kid to imitate the elders is considered as a sign of a unmatched intelligence which warrants being described to every ear within reach. And with the spread of communication technology, the number of ears within reach is exploding.

The senseless urgency for the child to grow up faster, learn faster than average takes its own toll. And with every generation the adulation of the 'faster' kids keeps growing. According to the anecdotes heard, it was just 2 geenerations ago that parents did not care where the kids are and what they are doing at school. It was important for the kid to go to school and the parent's role ended there. But then slowly the performance in school started getting counted. I thought the phenomenon had reached a pinnacle when I heard a parent of a 5 year old bragging about the 'performance' of her kid in school. But I was proven wrong. Now not only the 5 year olds are expected to perform in academics, but also in sports and chess and dance shows and art.

It is natural for the parents and the society to give importance for performance, but how much importance is appropriate? A child (almost everybody nowadays) grows up having either a superirority complex and complacency by the time he has reached 15, or more likely having no selfworth regarding any of his/her talents. The ego is worth only as much as marks recieved.

It does not take much time for the senseless urgency to convert into urge for sensationalism. After all, not every act in life can be evaluated as marks or rank in exam. Whenever something cannot be evaluated objectively, the only other alternative available is to measure recieved appreciation. And in a society which values marks over knowledge, quantity over quality, it is a simple matter of sensationalising the performance to recieve greater attention and relatively more appreciation.

A simple act of taking a vacation becomes an affair where more photos are uploaded (preferably realtime) than words exchanged. An act of buying a phone used for making calls becomes a mini computer plus a camera and a music system and a gaming device which can be used to 'hang-out' with online friends rather than spending the same time in solitude. The world should know what you are doing at every moment and your every moment revolves around doing what world expects.

Long gone are the days when people used to work for own satisfaction, enjoy for own satisfaction and sleep for own satisfaction. Its the age of sensationalism and of urgency.