The “BIG-SMALL”complex

Be it the Hulk from Avengers or the Kraken from  Pirates of the Caribbean, they all suffer from the common themes of sadness, loneliness and episodes of depression and can easily be characterized into some type of bipolar disorder. Well, before you conclude that I have completely lost it(not hard to imagine with few of last blog posts) I would like to warn you(ok! Plead) to  read this post till end.

My readers (if at all there is a community like this!); you all are aware of my intense fascination with walrus, octopus and snakes (Yeah, I kissed one snake while I was in India....ok confession, not on lips!). But, the theme is that I thought about my intense predilection for these majestic beasts and I realised that it stems from something we share in common- the small complex.

Inferiority complex and superiority complex are like two sides of the same coin and what an epitome of man's duality  it is. The very manifestation of one is the implicit manifestation of another. I believe that an inferiority complex is one of the nastiest psychological traits you can have. Seriously, it will mess your life up in a sadistic way. There’s a big catch to overcoming an inferiority complex: you have to understand its genuine cause. The apparent cause seem to be the fact you are inferior to others around you in a particular manner: you’re short, you’re fat, you’re bold, you’re poor, you’re less educated. You see, we are all inferior to other people in some ways, and superior in others. We all have our combinations of qualities and flaws and overall we’re not that different from each other. My point is that a certain flaw is not a realistically sufficient reason to have an inferiority complex.

The real cause of an inferiority complex has little to do with reality and it has a lot to do with how we process it. In order to get an inferiority complex, you have to dramatize in your head the meaning of a certain flaw.You have to tell yourself that, for example, you are so short you look like a midget, that everybody is making fun of you and that this is intolerable.  That is the point when you introduce God and other fictional characters in your head and start your private conferences.

Ok, now for some intellect excretion I would like to throw in a little Freud. He says-“Man is the most irrational being”. Sigmund Freud never looked at the nature of man in the positive direction. Instead, he saw that the way man uses the id component, has adversely influenced the right and proper adjustment of his inward being, using the ego to say he is justified for doing wrong and thus, making reality a case of cruelty. Man has various needs such as; psychological, physical, social, emotional and spiritual. As the needs of man plague his existence, in order to be comfortable, he must device a measure of satisfying his demanding needs. In the process of achieving this, man becomes logical, rational, mentally healthy and conscious in using his perspective powers of making decisions.

What is in the atom, is in the whole; what is in the micro, is in the macro; what is in the smallest, is in the biggest; what is in the drop, is in the ocean. once it is remembered that in the micro is hiding the macro, the way is paved for man to remember his own self potential. There is no reason for man to feel that he is small. There is no reason for even the smallest to feel small.It is necessary at this point to keep in mind the opposite side also that even the vastest, the biggest does not need to be filled with ego because even the smallest possesses the same. If an ocean becomes full of ego, it is madness because what it has is also possessed by a small drop. There is no reason for even the tiniest to feel inferior and there is no reason for even the biggest to be full of ego.Neither inferiority has any meaning nor superiority has any meaning. They both are meaningless. You may have heard the famous phrase of Omar Khayyam: ”Dust unto dust”; that dust returns into dust and there is nothing else to it.

It is necessary to remember that the whole immensity exists within man; it is necessary to remember that the Divine exists within man, so that he does not become inferior. And the interesting thing is that in order to destroy his inferiority complex, man falls into the fantasies of a superiority complex.

He starts finding ways to suppress the inferiority complex. When he feels inferior inside, he starts making wealth so that having amassed the wealth he may show the world and may feel himself too, that not only am I not nothing, I am quite something. The inferiority complex rushes and man starts climbing thrones so that standing on the throne he may declare, ”Who says I am nothing? I am something.”

Inferiority itself becomes the race for superiority. So, all the people who go in the mad race of becoming superior are necessarily suffering from an inferiority complex inside. Adler has said many amazing things. His statements are significant. He has said that often those who come first in running races, are the people who limped in their childhood. And those who become very skillful in music are those who were a little hard of hearing in their childhood.And those who become presidents, prime ministers, are often those who sat on the back benches in school. Because of that hurt of inferiority they set out to prove to the world that they are something; they want to show that they are something. Hence, if a politician suffers from inferiority, there is nothing strange in it. A worm goes on eating him up inside that he is nothing. And it hurts the mind, it puts one in difficulty, causes him to run. When Lenin sat on a chair, his legs did not reach the ground. The upper part of his body was long and his legs were short. When he sat on a chair, his legs could not normally touch the ground.

Now coming back to the octopus and walrus fantasy I have (started with the Beatles song!). Well, it has stemmed from the appreciation of the fact that despite being so majestic, they are so happy, complex-free and innocent. They are so full of life. So is the ant or the fly, not messed up for their size. Man must be a private joke between these animals. They must be making so much fun of the irrationality and paranoia of man.