A momentary lapse of madness

"In solitude, we are least alone." - Lord Byron

The icy fingers of the wind played across the craggy mountainside, screaming a primeval lullaby; tough love. The wanderer looked up towards the sky, smiling. The stars smiled back. The stillness of solitude offered him a measure of peace. He wouldn't quite call it enlightenment, no, that would be too self-assured. Rather, he felt what could only be described as a certain sense of equilibrium - a feeling of comfort, of belonging. Call it hope, if you will. As the cold winter breeze washed over him, he felt strangely comforted. In some odd way, he felt warm. Far from the screams, the curses, and the tears, he was home. As he stood upon that mountain, time faded into irrelevance, the voices of the past drowned out by the howling wind. And the future waited patiently, in silence. All he heard was the wind's raspy voice, absorbing and soothing. At that moment, nothing existed beyond the mountain. Memory dared not interrupt his reverie. No, he had not forgotten the past, rather, he'd learned much from it. And, at that moment, he'd simply chosen not to summon his recollections. The heat from his intense inward gaze had burned away the cobwebs, so, he could finally see past the surreal gray facades. He smelled the roses, felt their thorns and appreciated both sensations equally. He was a child, once more. Ever onward, deeper inward; the wanderer would never stop.

This whole rant was inspired by the following quote which I encountered in John Krakauer's Into The Wild:

"No man ever followed his genius till it misled him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in conformity to higher principles. If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, ... That is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. ... The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched." - Henry David Thoreau, Walden or Life in the Woods.

Reflections in the red eye

How do you fight thoughts? How do you disconnect emotions from memories? By losing consciousness. Most people sleep through their entire lives without even realizing it. They are blissful in their ignorance.

Among the few who do perceive reality - they are the ones who see the gray that lies just under the facade of color, and the brilliant colour that lies past that gray - there are fewer still who are able to process the overwhelming barrage of sensory input and actually make something of it. The wise cut the glare by looking through a visor composed of patience and detachment. To the rest, however, reality is so loud, it's deafening and beyond comprehension - for the symmetry of the universe eludes the impatient eye. To see it for even the most fleeting of moments can precipitate an epiphany.

It is such an epiphany that can complicate things somewhat for an individual. For he now knows the endpoint but not the path that will lead him there. And in searching for this path, one learns repeatedly, the limitless extent of human inadequacies. Some are driven by an indescribable inner flame (call it curiosity, if you will) to to try again... and again. These are people who know the true nature of hope and see its beauty. Others, however, give up on the quest and even end up regretting their awakening, so to speak. These are the ones who try consciously to sleepwalk through life (a combination of fatigue and sleep deprivation works rather well, actually). It would smack of hubris for one to pity such sleepwalkers, especially so for one who has knowingly wasted years. The decent thing to do would be to offer hope and encouragement.

So, I shall end with a rather popular and often abused quote from Swami Vivekananda - "Arise, awake, and stop not till the goal is reached."

On the subject of faith

A short while ago, I read excerpts from an article by Bhagat Singh, outlining the rationale behind his atheism - "Why I am an atheist". While I may not share his enthusiasm on the subject of Marxism (I will return to this topic, albeit briefly, in a short while), I must agree with him on the subjects of faith and rational thought. While I have tried to explain my position in this regard in previous posts, I can hardly hold a candle to Bhagat Singh when it comes to the clarity of his words and the exhaustiveness of his arguments.

Returning to the subject of Marxism, I believe that it is doomed to failure because, it fails to take into account human nature. Albert Einstein reportedly said, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity...and I'm not sure about the universe." Einstein may have been uncertain about the universe but Marx most definitely forgot to account for human stupidity. And, I will define stupidity broadly to include selfishness (in the sense that some measure of altruism in the individual is essential for the success of the species), ignorance, intellectual laziness and all of the innumerable other flavors we humans have come up with. When you think about the level of human stupidity, it becomes clear that two things are inevitable - one is the failure of Marxist principles and the other is the success of religion, 'organized' or otherwise.

To me, science is part of the silver lining around the dark, noxious cloud of human accomplishment. It seems almost miraculous that science and religion (the kind that is dogmatic and forced upon others by its proponents) evolved simultaneously and on occasion, within the same elements of consciousness. What separates the two is a short span over a deep crevasse - ideas on one side and beliefs on the other. And while believers may find the ways of science dry, cynical, unromantic and without hope, I would argue otherwise. What could be more beautiful than experience and understanding? What could be more cynical than believing in a supreme being who would stand by and watch the innocent be wronged? There is yet room for optimism for one who points to randomness to the way the world is.

Therefore, it is on the basis of history that I argue that faith is a luxury of the privileged, a refuge of the ignorant and an opium of the masses. Of those who would disagree, I only ask that they show me the data that would suggest otherwise.

PS. Thank you Partha, for pointing me to the article (Why I am an atheist).

Why walk alone?

If you're the type of person that knows the path to take through life, have you ever wondered what it would be like to not know where you wish to go? True, uncertainty can be decidedly unpleasant, in some odd way like sea-sickness, but it does offer a certain freedom. A freedom to choose any path at every fork in the road. That is a freedom not afforded a man of vision. Indeed, one must pay a price to chase a vision - one must forsake anything that may lead one astray, however dear it may be to one's heart. Often, men who choose such a path walk alone, immersed in the world around them and yet far removed at the same time. They are men cognizant of the price and willing to pay it. Though it is not always gladly that they make sacrifices, they do it with the unfailing faith that in the end, it will all be worth it. The essential question then is rather simple - is their faith true? Or are they lost? There's only one way to find out, isn't there?

This, that and some other stuff

What have I been doing this long? I've been pondering the title of my as yet unwritten book... the book that I shall write... well, time frames are really just constraints. Anyway, here are some working titles I've come up with:

1. Drink heavily, in moderation.
2. The pleasure of finding things that go bump in the dark by accidentally stepping on them, killing them in the process
3. Well, fuck you too! I fucking refuse to be fucking angered!
4. Inventive invective
5. Just some more crap...
6. Don't bother reading any further.
7. You will regret buying this book... I promise.
8. All you'll ever need to know about nothing
9. An uneventful life
10. Plotting to take over the world... and other self-motivation techniques

What have I been reading lately?

I was tagged by Pingu about a couple of months ago. I'm supposed to quote the last sentence from page 123 of the book I'm currently reading (I think those were the stipulations). As always I'm part way through a handful of books. I've decided to quote from two of the books because the others are graphic novels. Also, I've decided to quote my favorite lines instead of arbitrarily chosen ones.

Book 1: Brain Droppings by George Carlin
"Intelligence tests are biased towards the literate."

Book 2: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out by Richard P.Feynman
"I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good."

Downfall

The skies burn.
The very air seems to boil.
The daystar shines so bright.
Vying for glory,
A second midday sun.
Almost beautiful,
Decidely terrible.
A fleeting moment of unparalleled brilliance,
Before the world dissolves away,
Ushering in the darkness.
A darkness lasting much too long,
Choking into oblivion,
The last breath of life.
A mother lies hurt, scorched, scarred.
Her children all dead.
Her beautiful children, her terrible children,
Gone. Never to return.
Fate, so quick thy hand,
So cruel thy retribution.
Justice? It matters not.
The past is past,
The future awaits.
She lays sleeping,
Not dead.
Perhaps, the mushroom cloud had a silver lining.

I believe that while there always exists hope for the individual to find meaning in life, our civilization itself is merely circling the drain. If there ever existed a species on this planet whose extinction was not merely inevitable but deserved, it would be Homo sapiens sapiens. For we have allowed vile beasts like hate and war to roam free on our watch. The above lines are not a foretelling of the future, they merely offer a foreboding vision of a beast of our own creation consuming us at one fell swoop.

The Return of Random Rants

With reference to books, when did popularity ever become a complete measure of quality? Of the people who say it is, I ask this “Who died and made you king?”

Moving a couple of steps to the side from that thought – why do we judge each other by the books we’ve read or failed to read? It’s all too often that one hears some thing like, “You seriously can’t call yourself a reader if you haven’t read Tolstoy/Shakespeare/Macnife!” Oh, really? Is he not stupid who does not realize there have been so many great books written over the ages that it is entirely possible for different people to have read any number of great books without ever reading what the others in question have read? Granted, some great books are so widely read in a certain age that it may come as a surprise that one with a taste for books should have not read such a book. But to judge them based on that, that’s arrogant and stupid.

Have you ever felt like a sheep in a wolf’s clothing hiding among wolves? I have. And then for a while, I felt as though I was really the wolf hiding among the sheep. Strangely, I now feel like neither sheep nor wolf... I just don't know any more!

It’s 10:55pm and the temperature in my bedroom is 68.0 degrees Fahrenheit. I am sure that the probability of this statement being interpreted by ‘scholars’ who will ‘unlock its inner meaning’ is greater than zero. I wonder how much of what we ‘know’ is the product of such ‘insight’.

Continuing in the same vein: I am told that the fourth word of every seventh line from the odd-numbered pages of all seven Harry Potter books taken together spell out a secret message inviting the children of the world to unite under the banner of the duck-billed platypus and revolt against capitalism and chocolate teddy bears.

Often, genius is peppered with a dash of madness. However, madness alone is all too often mistaken for genius.

Could there be a better role model for me than a vision of the man I seek to be? Not only is such a role model open to constant evolution, but also it is impossible to be let down by him.

Is it not stupid to act solely to avoid future regret?

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Here’s a conversation that happened inside my head between me and a hypothetical ‘true believer’ (let’s call him B):

Me: So you say there’s a god who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent and that he made the universe?
B: Yes, of course!
Me: Then how do you explain the fact that I’m an asshole who won’t accept that? If god made me, wouldn’t he have made me aware of that fact?
B: No, He gave us all free will.
Me: Really? Why would he do that? To see what we’d do with it? But being omniscient, he should already know the answer to that – thus obviating the need for such an experiment.

Oh wait, he’s not only watching me, but will judge me after I die, right? If he already knew where I was going to end up and still let me do it, I’d say he has one hell of a twisted sense of humor.

And if you amend your definition and say he’s not omniscient, I ask you then why would he make you and me then? What is his purpose for creating the universe? To watch and learn? Wait, now he’s a scientist? But he wants you to forget about the science and have faith?

B: You’re evil!
Me: Sounds to me like you don’t have a real answer. My job is done then. Time to wake up and get to work – happens to be science by the way. I’m out of here, before you decide to kill me.
B: Good! And, don’t come back!

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"Let me give just one example of how the argument goes. By adding up all the begets in the Book of Genesis you can get the age of the Earth. It turns out to be about six thousand years old—A begat B, B begat C, C begat D. A's lifetime is stated, B's, C's and so on. Then you get up to historical times. Add it all up: 4004 B.C. according to Archbishop Usher. Now, if that is the case, then an interesting question arises. How is it that there are astronomical objects more than 6000 light-years away? It takes light a year to travel a light-year, so if we see an object that is a million light-years away or two million light-years away, we are seeing it as it was one or two million years ago in the past. If the entire universe is only 6,000 years old, what must we deduce from this? I think the only possible conclusion is that 6,000 years ago God made all the photons of light coming to the Earth in a coherent format so as to deceive astronomers into thinking there are such things as galaxies, that the universe is vast and old.

"Since most of the matter and energy in the universe is in external galaxies farther away than a million light-years, God must have created most of the matter and energy in the universe to deceive human beings. That is such a malevolent theology as well as such an arrogant pretension that I cannot believe anyone, no matter how devoted to the literal interpretation of this or that religious book, could seriously consider it. " - Carl Sagan
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PS. If, after reading this post, even one person reaches for a paper, a pen and the Harry Potter books, my job on this planet is done and I can go home!