Anonymous Notes

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”.

A good long break (all of 2 days) from the PC did me a lot of good. I had been almost glued to monitors for the last coupla months. too much work load or whatever.
Anyway, it’s amazing how out of sight need not always mean out of mind. Everything pushed out of immediate attention still governs our actions in our sub-conscience. to begin with people have a tendency to have a sub-conscience in the first place. I have noticed that however stony and distant someone might seem. They always harbour a streak of righteousness. How his/her actions manifest to support, ignore or defy this sub-conscience is what gives different appearances to different people. For example: A beggar comes up to your car window begging for alms. The different possible reactions are

• pretend not to see or ignore and justify your action by telling yourself or your companions that the beggar would do a decent days work if he/she did not receive alms from people
• give something to the beggar
• Irritate the beggar (by taking his/her begging bowl or picking a fight: beleive me I have seen this happen)

Now beleive it or not all these actions show similar traits in human beings. I am usually a member of the first group but I know in the back of my mind there is the thought that maye I should have given something to the beggar. (all the so called lectures on those less fortunate may have rubbed off).Their righteousess stems from having done the expected (right) thing. They do not want to be morally held responsible for not having done the right thing.

The person who gave something to the beggar is in a group which clearly reflect their thoughts by their actions. Their righteousness stems from acceptance of their role in society and the upliftment of the masses.

The third groups is the most complex of the lot. Their actions stem from their irritation from the presence of the beggar in the first place. Their Idea of righteousness is directed in a more general fashion. They beleive in righteousness for all humankind and do not see the beggar as having earned his/her position.

now such underlying thoughts may seem varied and distinct but really each is stemmed from righteousness. similarly other distinct emotions expressed to situations are usually motivated by similar driving factors underlying in our psyche.

That is the reason that the overall ideas of the human race has not changed a lot over time. Honour, Sincerity, Love for mankind, etc. are ingrained into our society. And in the end these are the threads which seem to be holding this so called civilisation together.

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.