Have thought of writing a million times but simply never get down to it. Not for want of ideas or issues or general chatter but the futility of it all.
All through my life, right from college, I have wondered at the worth of all our labours. The way we hold such store by our everyday activities -- brush, bathe, eat, dress, learn, talk, work and even sleep. Of these, many will count as daily chores that are required for the body, such as sleeping, eating, brushing, etc. And I shall therefore ignore them in today's dissertation!
What about studying? What about working? What about cooking those elaborate meals that seem to signify an evolved taste? (By the way, the level of processing of a food item such as pasta or cheese is, in an unintentional coincidence, directly correlated to the degree of evolution of a food item in the world of the upwardly mobile).
Is any of this really worth it? As so many philosophers have advised us since time immemorial (please dont squirm, I love that phrase!) to treat every day as our last. Alas! How many do? I certainly dont. I put off my must-dos, my patch-ups, my investments, my projects, my search for the Ultimate Reality (assuming there is one) -- all for tomorrow. I spend each day pondering afresh over the value of my rigours.
Why blog when no one will read. (I rarely accept that people dont read because I dont blog and the rare fan [ok, reader, if you insist] or two clicks out my blog from her list of favourites after a year's patient wait!) ?
Why write about those murderous scandals when the dust will settle on them a day after my piece is published and nothing will come of it (assuming the editor sieves it through for want of any potential harm to the MD, the owner, the publisher, the advertisers, the general manager or him) ?
Why sweat over your health when all your workouts are only firmly pushing you towards your own grave? All the fitness in the world cannot save you from a certain death?
Why crusade for a better governance or government when its results are at best ephemeral?
The bottomline of this refined discourse is that nothing lasts. Since our birth, as someone morbidly and mournfully discerned, we are inexorably hurtling towards our end. Nothing lasts. So what's the point of everything I do? After death, waits another birth, another endless rigmarole of chores, studies, jobs, kids, and what-have-you.
So far so good. I completely endorse every bit said above. That has never stopped me from giving my best to whatever I am doing, even though the thought at the back of my head springs to the front every now and then to make me question the worthwhileness of everything I do. The world is insensible. Think about it.
Let me look at the same thread again to argue another point. The joys are futile and so are the sorrows. Dont cry but dont laugh either. On second thoughts, laughter makes you happy for a while, so why not? Tears are painful. So let's decide to only be happy, never sad.
Now, can we do that? If we agree that this seems to be the inference at the end of a process of logical deductions, we should as logical creatures, be ready to accept what it serves up as right. So, can we always promise to be happy come what may? And we are not talking to the saints here.
Moral of the story: Never believe in logic.
Hang on, there is more. Therefore, as logic doesnt quite get it, we can safely believe that all that defies logic doesnt necessarily not exist. Which means God, karma, rebirth and other surreal phenomena that we dismissively box into religion could possibly, perhaps, likely exist. The trouble is that all the illogical books on these esoteric issues (anything that is non-evidentiary ends up in the esoteric definition) cannot convince a dyed-in-the-wool logic-hater dying to believe in them. She is convinced there is more to the world than meets the eye but wants to know how to see some of that.
That's when the soul-churning begins. Is there one God or two or three or many? Is he formless? Is he the creator? Why should my soul pass out just when my body stops cooperating? Why doesnt it leave before or after? Who created the creator? How can space be infinite (this is one point where science and religion concur shamelessly)? Why is education superior to religion (here, I mean Hindu religion, as other religions seem to co-exist with their learned followers.This is truly befuddling. Every Hindu who has studied beyond Grade IV believes religion to be rubbish and is mortified if ever found prostrating before an idol) ?
Here are some of my top-of-the-head logical extrapolations (all my own work, as Busybee would say)
If a mobile phone can catch invisible frequencies and give us crystal clear sounds, why not telepathy?
If the moon, at a distance 30 times the diameter of the earth (at 1000 kmph, we would take 24 hours multiplied by 16 to reach the moon), induces tempests in tides, why not the fluids inside our bodies, our moods and the people around us?
If the earth's magnetism, which we call gravity, can hold us steady all round its oval surface, why can't other spatial objects such as satellites or planets affect our movements and thinking?
Just as magnets are proven to have negative and positive powers of attraction, why can't the aura of your personalities draw certain types of people and repel certain other types?
And last but not the least, if we survive --and rather well - without any knowledge of the goings-on inside our bodies, why cant the world believe that what it doesnt know can exist?
Sigh!
P.S. This piece has smartly ambled from meaninglessness of everything to meaningfulness of the unexplained phenomena. I hate confessing it was inadvertent, but then the credit, like everything else, would be futile. As is the tectonic shift in my philosphical rumination. Godbless.
All through my life, right from college, I have wondered at the worth of all our labours. The way we hold such store by our everyday activities -- brush, bathe, eat, dress, learn, talk, work and even sleep. Of these, many will count as daily chores that are required for the body, such as sleeping, eating, brushing, etc. And I shall therefore ignore them in today's dissertation!
What about studying? What about working? What about cooking those elaborate meals that seem to signify an evolved taste? (By the way, the level of processing of a food item such as pasta or cheese is, in an unintentional coincidence, directly correlated to the degree of evolution of a food item in the world of the upwardly mobile).
Is any of this really worth it? As so many philosophers have advised us since time immemorial (please dont squirm, I love that phrase!) to treat every day as our last. Alas! How many do? I certainly dont. I put off my must-dos, my patch-ups, my investments, my projects, my search for the Ultimate Reality (assuming there is one) -- all for tomorrow. I spend each day pondering afresh over the value of my rigours.
Why blog when no one will read. (I rarely accept that people dont read because I dont blog and the rare fan [ok, reader, if you insist] or two clicks out my blog from her list of favourites after a year's patient wait!) ?
Why write about those murderous scandals when the dust will settle on them a day after my piece is published and nothing will come of it (assuming the editor sieves it through for want of any potential harm to the MD, the owner, the publisher, the advertisers, the general manager or him) ?
Why sweat over your health when all your workouts are only firmly pushing you towards your own grave? All the fitness in the world cannot save you from a certain death?
Why crusade for a better governance or government when its results are at best ephemeral?
The bottomline of this refined discourse is that nothing lasts. Since our birth, as someone morbidly and mournfully discerned, we are inexorably hurtling towards our end. Nothing lasts. So what's the point of everything I do? After death, waits another birth, another endless rigmarole of chores, studies, jobs, kids, and what-have-you.
So far so good. I completely endorse every bit said above. That has never stopped me from giving my best to whatever I am doing, even though the thought at the back of my head springs to the front every now and then to make me question the worthwhileness of everything I do. The world is insensible. Think about it.
Let me look at the same thread again to argue another point. The joys are futile and so are the sorrows. Dont cry but dont laugh either. On second thoughts, laughter makes you happy for a while, so why not? Tears are painful. So let's decide to only be happy, never sad.
Now, can we do that? If we agree that this seems to be the inference at the end of a process of logical deductions, we should as logical creatures, be ready to accept what it serves up as right. So, can we always promise to be happy come what may? And we are not talking to the saints here.
Moral of the story: Never believe in logic.
Hang on, there is more. Therefore, as logic doesnt quite get it, we can safely believe that all that defies logic doesnt necessarily not exist. Which means God, karma, rebirth and other surreal phenomena that we dismissively box into religion could possibly, perhaps, likely exist. The trouble is that all the illogical books on these esoteric issues (anything that is non-evidentiary ends up in the esoteric definition) cannot convince a dyed-in-the-wool logic-hater dying to believe in them. She is convinced there is more to the world than meets the eye but wants to know how to see some of that.
That's when the soul-churning begins. Is there one God or two or three or many? Is he formless? Is he the creator? Why should my soul pass out just when my body stops cooperating? Why doesnt it leave before or after? Who created the creator? How can space be infinite (this is one point where science and religion concur shamelessly)? Why is education superior to religion (here, I mean Hindu religion, as other religions seem to co-exist with their learned followers.This is truly befuddling. Every Hindu who has studied beyond Grade IV believes religion to be rubbish and is mortified if ever found prostrating before an idol) ?
Here are some of my top-of-the-head logical extrapolations (all my own work, as Busybee would say)
If a mobile phone can catch invisible frequencies and give us crystal clear sounds, why not telepathy?
If the moon, at a distance 30 times the diameter of the earth (at 1000 kmph, we would take 24 hours multiplied by 16 to reach the moon), induces tempests in tides, why not the fluids inside our bodies, our moods and the people around us?
If the earth's magnetism, which we call gravity, can hold us steady all round its oval surface, why can't other spatial objects such as satellites or planets affect our movements and thinking?
Just as magnets are proven to have negative and positive powers of attraction, why can't the aura of your personalities draw certain types of people and repel certain other types?
And last but not the least, if we survive --and rather well - without any knowledge of the goings-on inside our bodies, why cant the world believe that what it doesnt know can exist?
Sigh!
P.S. This piece has smartly ambled from meaninglessness of everything to meaningfulness of the unexplained phenomena. I hate confessing it was inadvertent, but then the credit, like everything else, would be futile. As is the tectonic shift in my philosphical rumination. Godbless.
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