Anonymous Notes

The terms civilization and culture together bring out the need for approval of individual actions from a group of peers. This when left to develop enough leads to a moral code. Which in essence is the opposite of barbarianism/animalistic tendencies.

So here we are with a moral codes which extend from ethics to conscience and consequentialism to guilt. This gives us a egotistical high ground from which to look down upon the rest of the universe. Once we finds ourselves on this imaginary pedestal there is nowhere to go but down. Let me elaborate.

In work life or in personal matters we take the moral code to be universally applicable but this will conflict with sel-interest and desirable outcomes. At this point we are left with an option to loosen the moral code (bend so to say) or forgo personal gain. As can be noted from the quote

Let he/she who is without any flaws or sins ‘cast the first stone

All of us have made these compromises at various points in time. But this code is usually so much a part of our existence that life without appears to be an impossible commodity. But then again moral codes are flexible (after all they can be bent ) but it’s like segments of a rubber band. If you pull on one side the other will tighten and resist more. Or as Newton put it once. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, Well in this case opposite but not really equal. I do not mean to say that we always have a looser moral code as we progress through life. But it allows modification within limits. Of course socio-economic conditions play a major role but, Individuals do have a level of control over it.

For those of you who read this far hoping I’d get to the point. Well there isn’t any just an observation, at best astute , at worst a foregone conclusion.

Who is truly Happy…

My Dad once told me that the happiest man in the world most probably was a daily wage worker who had just earned enough to get thru the day and was about to go to sleep at night.

Being happy requires ‘roti’ (bread), kapda (clothing) and makan (a roof), but is that all, Well most people I see around me do have those commodities but I wouldn’t call them happy people. At the end of the day when they go to sleep they do not have a feeling of completion.

This is an unfinished journal entry that I hope to complete some day. The thoughts are there but the words I fail to say…

I’m sure most of us remember the time when we were kids and imagined ourselves to be superhero’s with super powers to do stuff nobody else could. Was it just me or did everybody just wished they could make a difference in the world around. I remember I imagined myself as several bollywood hero’s from their leading roles in movies.

Well just sit back and hear me out here.
Later in life as we grew older our singular achievements in life gave us solice in knowing that we had done what few others had acheived. I’m sure everybody has a moment from 5th or 6th grade they remember. A part in a school play, an atheletic acheivement or something to do with acheiving good grades. Well did society bundle us up to think that all those things were unique. Well sure I played a really great part in a school play but I’m not an actor today. I won the 100mts dash but I’m not a sportsperson or I got good grades in school whatever happened. Those singular achievements that we are so proud of, Are they really making that difference. Are we in pursuit of what society makes us think we want. Just so that it can then just pop the bubble. It’s like, “Sorry kid you just don’t cut it as an athelete or a actor or a playwrite or whatever”.

A few years further away is your angry young martyr thing. This is when they make you beleive you really can make a difference right now. You start to discover real world problems and solutions and you start looking for/beleiving in this one thing you think can really make a difference. I mean social and animal rights activists. Those nerds who figure out that cold fision may not be a myth after all. It’s like a whole set of passionate paths are handed down to us. But again we bide our time awaiting to be taken seriously.

Even later and you find yourself in college doing stuff you never knew existed as a kid. and you go through more drills like a semester project or a survey or a garage project which you could sell to like billions of people.

Ok not everybody reaches there but the rest of us are still biding our time. And all this time we are supposed to fiegn interest and motivation for the benefit of those evaluating us. I mean, project evaluations are a joke. You take a seniors report and reprint it and you get the same grades as the guy who came up with this brilliant new idea and spent 4 months of flesh and blood implementing it. You get the same reactions as him too. Your 50 page report is checked for content(read contents page) and presentation and so is his. I saw this senior of mine submit a project which was an example from a software which was being taught to the class for 6 months. The teacher didn’t know and the fellow got top notch grades. Let me put this in light I personally know that senior and he was positively brilliant the kinda guy with those new ideas I was talking about. But as usual we are all biding our time and he saw no point in sweating unnecesarily for something which was not gonna matter to anybody anyways.

It seems like all this time we bide is just an excercise. Is it not to say that we are just killing away genius waiting to make that “one big contribution to the world”.

Human nature by default is to curb the degree of freedom enjoyed by any intellectual entity. This is reflected on most actions taken thereof by most institutions set up by mankind. Marriage, Censorship, various treaties, etc. are basically all control mechanisms of varied kinds serving the same common purpose. The apparent reason for such control are doomsday prophesies illustrated with easy in varoius fictional representations of our times and of times past.

To draw an analogy Howard Roarke the character from an infamous book may seem the perfect underdog with a perfectly heroic end. But he illustrates an even more deep rooted fear than obvious examples as our depiction of alien worlds in various sci-fi extracts has been in the past decades. To quote a few, check out the Hutt’s(Star wars), Klingons and Ferengi(Star trek), or any UFO reports in the past all point to no good coming out of excesses and thus justify the need for moderation.

In Rand’s work the ultimate fear that of complete conviction in whatever is done at an individual level leaves no scope for moderation. The fear stems and branches into varied flavours. In the absence of moderation what is seen is a lack of control which is the point brought out by her.

But then again lets turn away from fiction and move to reality for a change. For fiction might be interesting but will never replace the latter. In the charted course of history which has predominantly been through moderation and control. It can be seen that periods that lacked these qualities were the one’s which brought about changes in society. Beggining from all the wars/revolutions, to all scientific discoveries, to all innovations were all times of excesses in some sense or the other. Moderation it seems may bring control but lacks change and dynamism. So is it always a simple choice of whence to moderate and what to moderate.

No. The point now is to moderate as little as possible. For we may have another hitler but we may have another Einstien. We are always told to look at the bright side of things and I trust my glass is still half full.

The omnipresent notion of a holiday never ceases to amaze me. I mean look at it this way.

The dictionary describes a holiday as

A day free from work that one may spend at leisure, especially a day on which custom or the law dictates a halting of general business activity to commemorate or celebrate a particular event.

I mean in todays world is that really possible.
The human mind which we sing praises of is also to be the ultimate undoing of mankind. Sitting here at my desk today on a sunday all I can think of is the deadlines to be met next week. I went out in the evening but all I could talk about is my professional life. why professional alone I say even our private lives and times bind us to a state which can never really be a holiday. The incessant nagging of the future never leaves our side. I’m sure a wealthy businessman on a cruise would be thinking of all his bussiness issues that need to be dealt with in his absence. A common labourer on his day off has to worry about tommorows rations or concerns about how much he will be able to send back to his village.

Hmmm… that last paragraph scares me. sounds too much like a socialite talking about ‘social service’.
No my take in this entry is that the search for freedom and moksha and spiritual enlightenment is but an extension of the human thought of a holiday. Now is that true or just too prosaic.

Anyways I notice that my posts consistently show me as tired (as will todays). Maybe I should start posting in the day time once in a while.