The Rudest Book Ever

by Shwetabh Gangwar

  Ever hear a famous person say in the middle of an interview: ‘My publicist is not gonna like me for saying this’…? Well, that’s because that publicist is considering all of the above.

  These narratives are in place and you have been trained to react to them without thinking. So what happens now is, anybody can pick up a narrative, and as long as they follow the instructions, you remain convinced that they are perfect. This is how this shit works, if you wanna get a following. And depending on whichever desire is dominant in you with respect to your age and maturity, you make your choices.

  For example, if you are a teenager or guy in your early twenties, single, virgin, the narrative which might appeal to you would be: a guy with a great body and millions in his bank account, owns fast cars and big houses, has sex with beautiful models, and is always surrounded by gorgeous girls.

  There is no honesty, only advertisement at all times to their target audience.

  They don’t have to say they are perfect beings: it’s a by-product of the narrative. All they have to do is manage to be at the centre of everything you fantasise about and desire.

  For many young women, the narrative sold is a perfect beauty which encompasses luxury, elegance and a lifestyle that does not make sense. But it has to not make sense, or else it wouldn’t be perfect in your eyes. With a flash of common sense, you could look at it and conclude that it’s a narrative that cannot be translated into day-to-day reality. But you only focus on aspects that deal with desire, fantasies and aspirations. You look to compare and feel bad.

  And this shit doesn’t stop here. The narratives go in all directions: the perfect happiness, the perfect success, the perfect wealth, the perfect intelligence, the perfect morality, the perfect leader, and on and on. Whatever it is, there are people selling perfection in that desire, to that market.

  No wonder you hardly ever look within; you are too busy looking outside for answers as to how you can be like them.

  The majority of this occurs on the internet, which makes social media platforms a cesspool of these narratives. This means the more time you spend on them, the more dishonesty you are exposed to. Basically, the more time you spend on these platforms, the more likely you are to dislike yourself; you will tend to see yourself as unsuccessful; be more and more unappreciative of what you have and the people you have in your life; become more desirous of material things; wish to be someone you are not; try to behave in ways that don’t come naturally to you; and want to look like someone else. All because some run-of-the-mill person has the tools to manipulate data, eliminate aspects of being human and appear perfect to you.

  This can be found in many people on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and whatever social media apps there are and are yet to come.

  Then comes their upgrade, which is politicians, movie stars, musicians, writers, motivational speakers, journalists, activists, models, millionaires, billionaires who are backed by an array of people—counsellors, agents, publicists, managers, script writers, public relations firms, marketing teams, all working very hard to assure they remain fictional beings to you.

  HOW TO SAVE YOURSELF FROM THIS BULLSHIT

  Your choices lie between your ‘self’ and perfect people. You may find it laughable that ‘perfect people’ is even an option. That’s because you’re thinking logically right now.

  Search your feelings: how many people hold an unquestionable place in your mind? Do you think they are the best? Not the best at what they do, just the best. He/she is the best. If you have ever said that about anybody, they are perfect beings to you. They could be activists, journalists, late-night show hosts, ex-presidents, current presidents, spouses of presidents, prime ministers, motivational speakers, public intellectuals, celebrities, or billionaire philanthropists.

  In your mind, these are either perfectly moral people or have perfect intelligence. They have written good books, say the right things, and care about the world. They exude likeability, and have not an inch of human aspect which you sense with people around you.

  They are always positive when interviewed, consistently profound and humble. It is almost as if the interviews were scripted. Or maybe they are just clever people who know what to say at the right time. They seem as if they are more evolved.

  After watching them, we feel as if we have been left behind and ought to catch up with them, and the only way to do that is by following them.

  Here’s what you do whenever you feel like doing that: Admire, never follow. Nobody can discredit their acts of charity and positivity, but you have no idea who they are as a person—none—except what is in their control and power to sell.

  Let’s really compare the choices: perfect people or self—which is the better authority to lead you?

  THE SITUATION WITH THESE ‘PERFECT’ PEOPLE

  The situation with perfect people is:

  They are possibly the most famous people in the world, and almost everybody around you loves and follows them too.

  They exist on all social media platforms.

  They dominate in terms of number of followers.

  After seeing their large following, you find their narrative trustworthy. After all, millions of people follow them, millions of people aren’t idiots, I too am not an idiot, so I will follow them too.

  When you come across people who try to expose these narratives and urge you to see these people as people, you tackle it brilliantly by comparing the number of followers of the two. After all, popularity, money and fame are the best metric to determine rational thinking, right? All the most influential philosophers, thinkers and writers were multi-millionaires and looked like models, everybody knows this. Yes, that is sarcasm.

  They sell perfection, basically dreams.

  You look up to them, and believe what makes them happy will make you happy.

  You rely on them for the solutions to problems that have been created because of the perfect narratives they sell. I am not like them, I can’t think like them, I don’t look like them, I don’t have what they have.

  From whatever they provide, whether it is entertainment or information, deep down you know you watch them because of the aspiration element.

  THE SITUATION WITH YOUR ‘SELF’

  The situation with your self is:

  It exists within you, not on social media.

  It is alone and underdeveloped and will take time and work to develop.

  If you developed and empowered your self, it will look out for you by providing the answers to your fantasies, desires and confused wants.

  It will also render comparisons pointless, as you won’t be chasing after ideas that make others happy. You would be focused on making yourself satisfied, which is a highly introspective process and stays personal.

  After making the self your authority, the need to follow anybody will cease to exist completely.

  The aspirational aspect means going in the opposite direction from your ‘self’. No wonder it requires persuasion with advertising. The rest is taken care of by the narratives already created in this world—which make you assume that these people are fucking superheroes. Just chill with the assumptions, mate. This whole game is just their advertising and our stupid assumptions.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DON’T SUCK-UP IN A RELATIONSHIP

  WHEN YOU MAKE LOVE YOUR AUTHORITY

  Now we’re gonna talk about the most common way in which people give their authority to another person: in love.

  For a lot of people, love is the idea that someone else will make you happier than your self can. Right off the bat, that is a terrible idea. If both the parties believe that, it will lead to co-dependence, and if only one of the two does, it will lead to one becoming the other’s servant.

  When you are convinced that being with this person will make you happier, you suspend altogether the need for self-respect—that was your happiness index, but now this person is what brings you happiness.

  You have to understand where your self-resp
ect comes from. Self-control has to kick the shit out of any tendency in you that will stop you from living peacefully and performing at a gold-medallist level. That produces self-respect in you.

  Now suddenly you have met a person you think is the only source you need to be happy. So, you start undermining your work, ignoring your other priorities, and make them the top one. It’s understandable if it was like that only in the beginning—you both were excited then. But, if it has been years and you can’t say no to them anymore; you fear that if you disappointed them, they will leave you; the only way to keep them is by doing whatever they wish to, then you’ve royally fucked yourself. They are your authority, and not in a cute way. This, my friend, is a successful invasion of your nation. Your nation now works for them—if you don’t get what I am talking about, read Chapter 10: You Are A Nation.

  WHY YOU ARE TRAPPED IN A GARBAGE RELATIONSHIP

  There are many reasons why people get trapped in shitty relationships. Let’s talk about them:

  You think that you will never find a person as good looking as them; you will never find a person as great at sex as they are.

  You will never be able to love somebody again; nobody understands you better than them.

  If you are stuck in a shitty relationship and these are your reasons, then you need to hear some truths. First, these are highly over-exaggerated assumptions; two, stop trying to predict the future. Unless you are seventy years old and have had all sorts of experiences, you need to shut the fuck up.

  Every person in a relationship thinks their partner is special. Wow! According to that logic, every single person in a relationship is special. If so many people in this world were special, the word ‘special’ would have no meaning.

  They are not special; you are making them that because you have had limited experiences in life. It’s a fucking assumption you are making. There are billions of people. He/she is not the only one. But the person you most definitely need to find first is your ‘self’. Only then can you start to make sense of this.

  Here are more reasons:

  You will never find a person who would love you again; you think you are not worthy; therefore, you are lucky to have them.

  This is a person who has convinced themselves that they are less. This insecurity might be one of the reasons you fear they will leave you for someone ‘more deserving’. At the same time, it may also be why you love them—because you believe nobody else will want you. You do understand this is fear talking. But you have shared an apartment with this fear for such a long time that you genuinely believe that. Now, because of this fear, you have built a tolerance for their shit. In any case, the answer cannot be only this person. You have no data to support that, only your dumb fear is telling you that. This is a hugely bad assessment.

  You have put so many years and so much effort into this, so you can’t back out or else you would look like an idiot.

  So your self-image is more important than peacefulness in your life? Great, then. If anything, it should be an even bigger reason to get out. You have spent a huge part of your life taking this shit; at least the remainder of it should be lived on your terms.

  You say that you are prepared to end this any second, you don’t give a fuck anymore; but it keeps going on.

  This is a person holding on to a hope called: ‘they will change’. You are watching the same movie every day, hoping that the ending will change this time. You secretly hope that they will change and reform with your tolerance and dedicated love. What happens is, once in a while, they are nice to you. You translate these actions as indications that they care about you, and tell yourself, this is who they really are. This, of course, is bullshit. When the bad experience returns, you aren’t shocked, because it’s the same movie all over again. The truth is, you aren’t prepared to end this. What you have prepared yourself to do is keep taking shit from them. And once you have normalised it, why would you want to escape from it? It’s a routine to you now.

  You believe they are who you think they are.

  This one just takes the cake. So, hear this out: the idea is that you are the only person who truly knows them. Again, you believe you know them like nobody else does. You created this idea because you have had intimate moments with them in which you saw them in their emotional highs and lows.

  Well, this of course is an assumption—that you are the only person who has seen them in these emotional states. But you want to believe that, because you get a sense of personal connection with them, as if you were their family. And they probably say this shit to you too, which enforces this idea.

  And because of this, you cannot leave them despite how horrid their behaviour may become because, in your mind, that would be like abandoning your family. You think that they don’t have anybody like you in their lives. You are their protector, caregiver, mother, and they are supposedly orphans or damsels in distress.

  They need you because you’re the only one who knows what’s good for them. Therefore, they are harming themselves by pushing you away.

  This is taking the last idea and climbing the mountain of crazy. This is farthest from the truth and your bullshit justification. Here’s what you need to hear:

  If they left you, then they didn’t need you in the first place. If they didn’t leave you, but didn’t do much to keep you either, then they were in the relationship for selfish reasons only. If they didn’t leave, but have lied to you, cheated on you, then they never valued you like you thought they did. By no stretch of imagination are you the only person who truly knows them and is like their family. If you were, they would have shown you that in actions, not words.

  Are you trying to fix somebody’s life?

  They only have me. He/she is a broken person, and I am fixing them.

  Is your life completely fixed? Are they in their twenties or above? Can they read? Do they have internet? If yes, then they can fix themselves if they want to. Nobody can fix someone who doesn’t want to fix himself/herself. Why don’t you fix your own fucking life? There is plenty of help out there—books, videos, therapy, sensible people—if they need it. Stop pitying people. You have a fantasy that if you fix someone, they will love you back. So you look for broken people. Well, here’s the truth: they are not the only ones. Everybody is. Everybody above the age of twenty-five is carrying some serious scars, including you. Mind your own fucking business. And here’s news for you: they are not weak either. That’s why they are fucking you up in a relationship. You’re the one getting hurt.

  Trust me when I say this, the logic that ‘if you fix somebody, then they will love you’ doesn’t work—people don’t work that way. They have their own minds. People are gonna do what they wanna do. If you want to know who somebody is, focus on what they do every day, what actually fascinates them, and how they behave around people. That will show you in which direction they want to go. The sooner you gather the strength to accept the truth, the better it will be for your future. Stop with this selfish charity. If you have so much time and energy, put it in your life and find a stable person who wants stability in relationship too.

  HOW TO SET YOURSELF FREE FROM A BAD RELATIONSHIP

  Step one: Decide once and for all that you want to leave.

  Step two: You have to see them as oppressors, even if they are highly respected, loved, one of the nicest people in the eyes of others. It is absolutely necessary for you to see them as oppressors, if you want to break free.

  Step three: Seek help from capable, caring people.

  Step four: Be completely invested in knowing your ‘self’, because it will provide you all sorts of amazing possibilities for your future.

  Step five: The most important step—once you leave, never ever look back. Do not try and find out what is happening with them, how they are, what they are doing, what they are uploading on social media. Close that chapter completely from your life.

  HOW TO NEVER GET TRAPPED IN A SHITTY RELATIONSHIP

  You need to have your concepts clear
about what a stable relationship is supposed to be:

  A relationship does not mean giving a person authority over your self.

  In a relationship, self-respect should never be compromised or replaced by anything. The happiness from companionship comes from the need to be loved, understood and valued by someone. Self-respect comes from self-control. There is no correlation.

  Self-control will ensure continued respect from your partner. Knowing who you are and staying true to yourself will give you credibility and trustworthiness in their eyes.

  A relationship should be looked at as a partnership between the two people. Therefore, careful selection of a partner is required, not a random choice out of desires, urges and tendencies, which are the criminal elements.

  Finally, the self must always remain supreme. That doesn’t mean you won’t become habituated to the other person, or even addicted to them. The supremacy of self helps maintain the thin line between addiction and dependency. If the relationship doesn’t work out, the addiction will wear off gradually after months, but dependency is a virus which makes you think there is no option but the other person. So, despite knowing that this relationship is toxic, mentally abusive or breaking all the unacceptable rules, you are unable to break away. You think that, without them, you don’t exist—that is the poison of dependency. What you need to know and feel in your life is, you have your ‘self’ at all times.

  From this, you can imagine why working on your ‘self’ is so important. Others don’t dare to fuck with your nation if you have a strong leader. And when they do, the leader knows how to take care of you. Your ‘self’ is what you have—why not get busy knowing it and empowering it!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LEARNING HOW TO THINK

  Ah, you have made it to the penultimate chapter: welcome and congratulations, mate. This might possibly be the most important chapter, and really heavy too. So, ‘let’s just jump into it’.