Virtue of a bygone era

I read these post titled 'India doesn't need Olympic pride' and 'Do you think Kashmir is an integral part of India' on India Uncut. The writer articulates the very thoughts that rant and rave about every day and for giving me a voice, I thank him. National pride, if I may be so bold, is a virtue of a bygone era. Tribal and provincial allegiances were once subordinated to national unity and nation states were born. It's time we take the next step and recognize ourselves as individuals whose collective identity derives from the species we all belong to. The nations our forbears forged have evolved from being unifying forces bringing together clans and tribes to being divisive labels keeping neighbors at each others' throats. Take India and Pakistan, for instance - why are we still busy antagonizing each other? It's about time we started identifying ourselves as human beings and it's about time we started acting accordingly. The importance of pride derived from a national identity and the resultant umbrage taken without reason are beyond petty in the face of the very real problems like starvation and strife we face. Is it too much to ask that we forget window dressing and turn our attention to the real issues at hand?

To my inner cynic and yours: Like I've said before, what could be more human than hope?

PS. I'm not deluded enough to think that all the world's problems or even any one of them can be completely resolved. After all what stands in the way is human nature. But I do think that an things can be made better for an individual or a group of individuals. Where's the fun in life if we don't fight for small victories in the name of a lost cause?

PPS. I owe thanks to Partha for pointing me to the posts on India Uncut.

Of clown masks and suicide

I watched two documentaries - Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog's meditation on Antarctica and the eclectic group of people who gravitate towards it's desolate magnificence) and Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - and I read some more Batman comics. And then I did this thing that I have a habit of doing from time to time - I thought. What follows is a brief account of some of what came out of the depths of my considerably dark mind. Do enjoy.

Hunter S. Thompson lived an eventful life to say the least. But who was he? To me he was Cicero reborn as an angry jester - the 60's version of Akira Kurosawa's Kyoami from Ran. As Gonzo, he had the courage of conviction to give voice to the angst that most of us feel but try to ignore and a way with words that forced the meek and the strong alike to stop and take notice. He shocked the timid among us and rattled the cages of the powerful. But such power exacts a heavy price - Gonzo was a clown face that Hunter Thompson could never take off. Just as Bruce Wayne was reduced to little more than a mask that Batman wears during the day, Hunter Thompson, the man, was little more than a vessel for Gonzo. And like Batman, Gonzo is a being with an unquenchable fire of anger burning within his heart - to sustain such a fire means fueling it with one's very life force. And there's only so much wood in the pile. (This is where Bruce Wayne has the advantage of being fictional.) Such men burn bright, a shining beacon, but they burn through life quicker than most - in the end, one must either retire the firebrand alter-ego or face annihilation. Unable to give up being Gonzo perhaps, but without the energy reserves to sustain him much longer, Hunter Thompson took his own life, leaving a note that read, "No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt."

When it happened, Thompson's suicide came as no surprise to those who knew him for he had always foretold his end by his own hand, viewing it as a way of dealing with death on his own terms. And that leads me to my next question. Why would any man look upon suicide with such romance? Well, let me begin with a brief segway. Interviewing a reclusive/taciturn penguin researcher in "Encounters ...", Herzog asks, "Do penguins ever go insane? Do they ever commit suicide?" The footage that follows is of a lone penguin breaking away from his colony and walking towards the interior of the continent, towards certain death. There is undeniable power in the image of the lone penguin awkwardly waddling into the vast, desolate expanse of the Antarctic. But why? Well, why do we celebrate tragedy in song, in verse and in prose? The magnetism and romance of sorrow are undeniable. Perhaps it is an expression of the sub-conscious mind reveling in the 'human condition'. Nonetheless, it is this attitude taken to an extreme that leads some of us to see romance in suicide. While I myself no longer hold such a view, I can understand it to a degree.

A lot of us are lazy - physically, intellectually, morally... in more ways than there are words to describe. Observeing the challenges that life throws at some of us, through a veil of laziness, one is often left in doubt of one's ability to cope with adversity. Suicide begins to look more and more like a convenient emergency exit. Add to the mix ideas like reincarnation and the finite nature of our existence is no longer a significant issue. And in an attempt to rationalize a lack of moral fortitude, one begins to paint a rosy picture of suicide as an honorable way out. This could easily happen to a man who's lived long enough, burning his candle at both ends. Rather than sacrifice his ego to give up the hard life, such a man may well decide to check out early from this mortal coil.

This is not to say that all the people who commit suicide are entirelyto blame for their predicament. There are the less fortunate among us who see nothing more than boundless misery in life and are left drained of hope, thanks to the apathy of their fellow men. When such men chose to take their own lives, everyone of us selfish people deserve equal blame. Civilization, by definition, can not function without an element of altruism. Having ranted at length on this topic in several of my previous posts, I will say no more on the topic... for the moment.

P.S. Describing the Antarctic as desolate magnificience is an undoubtedly lame play on Buzz Aldrin's description of the lunar surface and was therefore, irresistable to me.

What I do and why I do it

What could be more rewarding than utilizing the power of thought to illuminate the workings of the universe (/life) itself? But in order for one to begin connecting the dots, one needs dots. It is the function of experiments and mathematical modeling to provide such dots. While advances in technology have enabled us to obtain ever more precise dots in ever greater number, identification of the pattern that emerges from them remains the sole domain of human intellect. However, inherent in this grand description is recognition of the limited nature of human scientific knowledge. A scientific theory is merely the most complex simplification of a real process that can be achieved at the given time. This is because we are unable to observe the whole fabric of reality, depending instead on experiments and mathematics to transduce a few bits and pieces of it into a form that our senses may perceive. As long as this remains the case, a scientist can never run dry of curiosities to indulge. Indeed what a curious thing the human condition is? Our limitations ironically ensure an inexhaustible source of mystery that we may forever be amused.

Just because we killed you, it doesn't mean we don't love you.

The meaning of one’s existence (I refer to a meaning bounded by the span of one’s consciousness and not to any manner of grand, unifying purpose) comes from interactions of one’s consciousness with the universe at large and with other conscious minds. The proportion of these two types of interactions is determined by who we are and in turn defines our identity. Sometimes, in interacting with certain people we find the meaning of our own existence enriched. These are the people with whom we form stable, meaningful bonds – love, friendship and the like.

Once in a while there comes along an individual whose existence enriches that of many – a hero. Indeed a hero is one who can love many as his own and continue to do so without having to avert his eyes from the truth. Because, heroes are reviled more than they are loved – that is the way of our “society”. Our actions scream out the words we dare not whisper – the only good heroes are dead ones. While they live, heroes are the squeaky wheels that will not be silences. They are the square pegs that will not be contained by the round holes of our “society”. They are the thorn in our collective side. But truly they are the sheep in a den full of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Why do we hold such contempt for them? Perhaps because they are who we wish to be and by being noble, they reflect the ugliness in the rest of us. We are too lazy to live by our principles, or to even have a clear moral framework; so we deem it impossible. We blame our failures on “the human condition”, but then a very human being comes along and offers us a glimpse of what is possible. And we hate him for it. We destroy him as best we can – we may not always succeed at destroying the idea of a hero, but we certainly excel at destroying the person of one. Once we’ve killed a hero, we try to truly bury him and all that he stood for. Failing that, we place him on a pedestal. In what must be the greatest mockery of them all, we then condemn our own hand that did the killing. But at some level we all know that our collective hands are stained with more blood than we care to admit, even to ourselves.

Once a hero is slain we go to work on him with the all the skill of a master artist: we place his name in lights and sing ballads in his honor even as we grind down the idea he stood for, until all that remain are a few weak words. Words like liberty and non-violence – words that we may then utter with mock ceremony without fear of being affected by the idea they once represented. That way we can sweep away our collective guilt under the proverbial carpet and move on with our “lives”. Ain’t WE grand?

The one redeeming truth, though, is that heroes do sometimes succeed – rarely to the extent they had aspired to and almost always, paying with their lives – but at the end of the day, they stand tall over (against?) the rest of us.

P.S. This post was inspired by a radio talk show discussing the ideals that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for.

What could be more human than hope?

This is in response to a comment on my previous post.

What could be more human thank hope?
Anynymous said:

1. Adultery
2. Backstabbing
3. Jealousy
4. Irrationality
5. Wasting Money on Valentines Day
6. Substance Abuse (show me one bonobo or iguana that does it?)
7. Emotional manipulation (the preserve of the average Indian parent)
8. Evil (this is purely a human thing, born entirely out of ignorance)
9. Obsession with stupid games in which grown men fool around with spherical objects
10. Belief in a grand narrative known as life (when it is just a series of digressions)

Indeed many, if not all of the above are all too commonplace. But the question is, do they constitute what may be described as "human"? I for one do not think so. Quite to the contrary, they constitute a failure to be "human". It is my opinion that belonging to the species Homo sapiens sapiens alone does not qualify one as a human being. To me, humanity is an ideal one strives for every moment of one's existence. Humanity is no congenitally conferred label, it is a state of mind achieved through long and rigorous learning (and I'm not talking about reading Chicken Soup for the Soul). For a more detailed discussion of my views on the subject, see "Human Life".

P.S. With regard to Anonymous' list of things human, I find it rather odd that obsession with sports or enriching the coffers of Hallmark should be placed right alongside jealousy, backstabbing and ignorance.

Madness explained? Maybe

First things first. For those who were offended by my statements regarding religion in my previous post "Madness returns...with a vengeance": Calm the fuck down! (Yes, I can be nice.) I have nothing against religion, as long as one man's religion does not step on the toes of another man's liberty. Now, if that's true, why would I say the things I said? That post was supposed to be one long (OK! and somewhat twisted) joke - I was trying consciously to dance on either side of the border between sounding coherent and launching into a 'nonsenseical rant' on the subject of rational thought - I thought it would make for a few good laughs.

That being said, two questions have come up that I would like to address. The first and by far the easier one to answer concerns my rationality. I don't presume to consider myself a rational being. Rather I'm stark raving mad , grasping at the frayed ends of rational thought from time to time. (Maybe I'm just using colorful words describing myself as 'stark raving mad' but for some odd reason it makes me really happy, so, I must really be mad.) [Please tell me you laughed at this one, or else!]

Now for the other question. Being someone who describes himself as a 'man without beliefs', where do I stand on the subject of faith? Nowhere really. Let me clarify. To me liberty is the ultimate and all-encompassing virtue. One who comprehends liberty will value equally his own and that of his fellow men. Thus, such a person automatically seeks the noble within himself. So then, where does the big G fit into all this?

What is God but a construct to rationalize morality (dharma, to be more precise)? It takes little effort to see that this is a construct very much of human making. The understanding that walking the right path is its own reward simply obviates the need for the construct. In essence, a truly rational atheist rejects not the ideal but merely the construct, the packaging of the idea, if you will. A long time ago, a very wise people put this succinctly when they said, “Anbe sivam”. And yet, those who now stand upon the shoulders of these are blind to this truth. Why? Because, millennia of intellectual lethargy have led to the construct replacing the very ideals it stood for. Method has given way to madness, vision to myopia. And the fear bred by myopia feeds on itself, restricting thought even more. Indeed, what a wonderful instrument of control the idea of blasphemy is!

Rather than launch into another lengthy tirade as I am wont to do, I will just say that ignorance is the villain, as always. And should the light of reason ever break through this fog, perhaps people of the different faiths and those of none may see that they are after all more alike than different.

P.S. What could be more human than hope?

Just words...

What's in a word? Everything, some say. That seems to be our collective point of view as a society. Why else would we fear some words so much? Invectives, the very sound of the word is ominous - as though, to say it out loud would invoke some dark malevolent power. Indeed we fear these words so much that we place restrictions on their public use, resorting to censorship even as we speak loftily of the freedom of expression. Such hypocrisy! What are mere words without thoughts behind them and actions ahead? NOTHING! (I'm not denying the power of words here. I'm merely pointing out the fact that the power of words stems from the thoughts that inspire them and the actions that they inspire.) And yet, we obsess over words rather than thoughts and actions. We shield our children, who are the best part of us, from words while it is the thoughts and actions that do them the most harm.

What makes us this way? It's simply laziness - intellectual and moral. We always want an easy out - morality for dummies, if you will. Do these ten things, don't do those ten and you're all set. It's easier to keep a few words out of one's vocabulary than to steer clear of malice, of envy and all things ugly. If only we had the courage to strive to find the right path every moment of our lives, we would see how blind we are to fear words. As a realist, I know that will never be - so I shall plod on, painting invectives for what they are... just words.

P.S. This post was written at Pingu's request to clarify my reasons for peppering my previous post so generously with four letter words and other choice gems from the English lexicon.

Madness returns... with a vengenace

No pretenses, circular nonsense follows! This post isn't going to go anywhere, it's not even going to try - it is going to be the purest form the abundant junk that primarily composes the Internet. Interesting, considering it would appear to be a perfect analogue to a person, yes a damn person! What the flying fuck does that mean? It means I'm calling the human race the biggest trash pile in the history of our rockpile - the planet we so lovingly named Earth, and the very same planet we choose to clusterfuck in innumerable ways.

Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it. - Confucius

[That's the attitude you need to have while reading my blog.]

This is the point where you're thinking, "Geez, what an arrogant prick this guy is!" Well, guess what, 'Oh exalted one', I never said I wasn't one. In fact, I've never said much about who I am, except that I consider myself a 'nobody'. The universe has no laws against nobodies being either raving lunatics or arrogant pricks on an ego-trip, or even both. So, what am I saying about myself? NOTHING!! If I knew something of consequence about myself, I probably wouldn't be writing crap like this.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. - Marcellus (William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

[Don't look at me. Whatever it is, I didn't do it!]

What do I know about myself then? I know I like chocolate. And, I know I hate three kinds of fuckbags more than all other kinds (I'll get to the different kinds of fuckbags later, maybe) - fuckbags who try to insinuate themselves into my life as though it were their birthright, fuckbags who presume to know what path I should take through life, and most of all, fuckbags who try to define reality using an explicit function. I mean, what the hell will it take for you to see how fucking stupid that is -an explicit function! Am I saying by implication that I think reality should be characterized using an implicit function? Fuck, NO!! If you're religious, you must understand that! If you're a rationalist, you must be in splits - yes, you are most welcome! And, if you're a religious rationalist, you are an oxymoron and a fucking moron! Someone should have told you that by now.

The gods offer no rewards for intellect. There was never one yet that showed any interest in it... - Mark Twain

[Really? I figured there must be one helluva reward for intellect. Why else would so many be out to kill it?]

Holy F Cow!! How quickly a post grows when content is not an issue! Once again, am I implying that my shorter posts have something in the way of content? Or even that that was ever the idea at least? Fuck, no! When will you ever learn? Half the problems humans have with fellow humans arise from the utterly naive assumption that simple logic can be applied to human behavior. People are many things - chiefly screwy and goofy. There, I said it. It's the wisdom of ages! People are screwy and goofy! Now will you hold off on the bloody assumptions? Look where they've gotten us!

Adversity is the first path to truth. - Lord Byron

[So, keep reading!]

On a random note (hey, I'm by no means saying that anything I've said thusfar was any less random. [sly grin]), if you're wondering about the rather prodigious use of profanity in this post, you must really believe that everything happens for a reason. Well, everything happens for a reason all right - Mr. Murphy's amusement! He loves your kind - especially the way you're always running around in circles with your hair in flames when shit happens.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. - George Bernard Shaw

[So, stop blaming me!]

Some of you must be scratching your heads as to why I capitalized the 'I' in Internet. (If you're not, you need to be more observant.) Well, that seems to be the convention when invoking entities that are omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent in nature and the Internet's not only damn close on all three counts but we also know for sure that it exists! That in my book definitely counts for something. (You didn't expect me to go this far without taking a pot-shot at the big G, did you?)

"God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically." - Albert Einstein

[You and I have to live and die so that 'he' can get y=42?]

Those of you with live hamsters running within the wheel upstairs might recall my promise to discuss the different kinds of fuckbags there are. If it shocks you to know that I don't intend to keep my word, please DO NOT VOTE! Anyway, I'm getting tired from spewing all this drivel, so I'm going to take a break. (Finally, you have something to be really thankful for. Thankful to whom? ME. Because this reprieve that you're getting is my benefaction.) In any case, I think I've managed to give you a glimpse of what happens when a train of though derails - no, it's not pretty at all. So, indeed, you are most welcome.

P.S. No supreme beings where harmed during the writing of this post.