My days of Dilemma - My path to Realization

I have a pretty clear idea about what my aim is in all the small interactions I have with other human beings out of my circle. To stay disconnected enough to avoid them from affecting me, unless it is someone I care about in which case I try to get them out of their misery if they let me, cause I can’t bear their suffering. This clear idea is not because I am socially awkward or something but because I believe that my happiness is my priority. And I have a very clear idea about when I am happy. The reason I avoid interaction with the other people is that they do not know what their happiness is and this renders them irrelevant and even destructive.

A persons’ philosophy is simply his principles and how he derives them. It is not just a vague theory subject which can get you a degree. It is what one believes and what one doesn’t. What one values. What one considers friendship, love and how one approaches the world. It is ones idea of what constitutes good, bad, ugly or irrelevant. And a very important WHY for all the what’s and how’s. The ground work. The basics. Everyone has an idea about this though it is not put into words usually. It is a simple enough concept. But most never have the patience, and sometimes courage, to think about it.

Many reasonable people can answer the what’s and how’s. Many can’t. But the key word in the above paragraph is the uppercase why. You can’t just give a why not or something to that affect there - that would be saying I don’t know why. You must understand the question at hand, decide its merits and virtues, decide its applicability to you, and then decide whether you accept it or not. And you must decide by your own cognition and reasoning capability. That is the only way to answer the why. And that is how you are sure. The key word in here is you. You must reason and decide.

Though I am not an expert, I’ve got a basic understanding of philosophy because I did not have it by birth and I desperately needed it at one point in life to avoid becoming a slave to the hypocritical society like most people around me. More than a point, it was a phase. I was hypocritical as everyone else, I was conflicted. I did not know whom to believe. I was better off than most at my age because I at least knew what everyone thought was right was not right. But I did not have the why. So I was somewhat doing what everyone was doing with a question mark attitude. This part of my life can be called ‘dilemma’ which had the following characteristics:

1. I was valuing what everyone valued.
2. There was no formula in my thought process to determine what was virtuous, right or wrong. My answers were always hesitant and somewhere in between. I was afraid of taking a stand. I could not judge clearly for myself and ended up feeling guilty whenever I was compelled to decide.
3. I went along believing sacrifice and charity was the ultimate goal of life.
4. I was thinking that happiness of others was my happiness.
5. I just thought beggars were very very unfortunate people who deserved to get money from others for survival. Just like I was thinking that socialism was not bad.
6. I was thinking that inefficiency is all right as long as a person is good natured and basically harmless.
7. I thought keeping in touch with hundreds of people was important. Though I never actually got myself to do it.
8. I felt guilty when I am doing something for my pleasure. Though that did not stop me.
9. I felt proud when doing something which I did not have a vested interest in even though I had no idea why I was doing it.
10. I was sometimes caring about people though deep inside I knew I could never care about them. Because I did not know why I shouldn’t care for them.
11. I was faking concern about things that did not concern me for the sake of sanction of others.
12. And even though I always knew concept of god was superfluous and the way to ruins, I was not clear on the why.

Then somehow, I started reading The Fountainhead and I knew this was the answer. This was right. And I started down this path. Now I don’t hesitate anymore to take a call. I actually know what I believe and why.

The sixty seventh independence day - as no one else is counting

Just got this off my fb page: This happens to be the 67^th Independence day of India. Disclaimer: this was an Economic Times update on my fb – so buyer beware.

Truly we are running out of numbers. Last I remembered, people were going crazy about the half century figure but India is batting faster than Sachin after he completes his fifty. Wait, what’s my age now? Never mind.

So I was thinking why so much fuss about Independence day and its celebration. It’s quite funny to see people upload flags to their profiles to convince themselves that they still are patriotic. I could point it out to them, but then I’ll have no one to laugh at. When I think that the concept of nation is about its geography and borders as I read in the inaccurate geography text books in my high school, the illogical social text books in my high school correct me to say that the concept of a nation is its people and culmination of all the cultures it has accumulated when it was in slavery of the kings or whites, or bureaucrats later (I made that up, the text book doesn’t have the wisdom to say it).

Well, if it’s only about borders and spaces, there is no point in feeling sentimental about it. If it is about people, culture and all the crap that it comes with, the bottom line is the same. It’s more hypocritical than foolish and either ways, no need to feel attached and sentimental about it. I, for one, am starting to get allergic to  people and their stupid notions specifically because they restrict MY independence for the sake of something they are not sure they believe in.

The only good thing is that it is a public holiday. But even that’s got an angle. It’s a dry day (again, this info is not from an accurate source and I am too uninterested to google)

You want us to celebrate by holding it dry? I repeat: hypocrites.

We grew up

Used to watch Sachin with wide open mouths. Learned perfection hence

Never being interested in his records, just the Goosebumps-giving straight drives with MRF

From the promises-to-self of never marrying

Of never drinking, never drinking and driving

Never doing the wrong

From the summers of boredom to being busy for the waiting ones

Came a long way

 Learned English with the spoken English classes offered by Yahoo messengers and Orkuts

Who would’ve thought, that it would earn the food that donkey years of education never could

That waiting for the kissing scenes in Hollywood movies

Anything more than that would make the day up

Studies meant exams, exams meant marks, and marks meant expectations

Studies never meant learning. Not even after knowing that marks meant nothing

Terraces were the play grounds which never existed

Terraces were converted to secret party places later

And Bars, And night out adda’s

Bunked it all

Schools, colleges, tuitions, offices

Some times, technically, home

Those afternoons of blaming our dads for not being rich

And blaming the rich for not giving it all away

Not having the bucks to party

To having no places which could hold the parties long enough

From the outlander view from inside a boys school

To getting bored and sick of nuisance of girls (oops - most of the girls)

Moved on, from hand video games, to TV video games, to PC games

Now to no-more games

From the Dexter’s labs and ftv

To Nolan’s Memento and more

In the process, came across people, acquaintances, few friends, very few good friends

Losing a couple of them by chance, some friends by choice

From being pure atheists

To being just an agnostic

And not caring enough to even remember that term

From Learning about hypocrisy by observation

From gaining expertise in it by practice

To hating it all by heart

To deciding never to be a pert of that mix

To realizing that it’s a resolution hard to hold

Starting with belief of a destiny, going around the concept of luck

Coming to believe in the randomness

We grew up.