Bp's Timeless Quotes

"Men are like women's pantylines. The more they try to hide themselves, they more they end up showing."

Question Insanity

I finally finished reading "Who Killed Daniel Pearl" by Henry Bernard Levy. And, needless to say I am disturbed. I am unable to fathom the extent of man’s insanity, or at least his insane interpretations of tools of social control. As weird and ironical as it sounds, I still believe that equality as a proposition/principle (whichever way you look at it) thrives on the actuality of inequality. Tools of social control, or for that matter any aspect of any culture, or culture as a whole has failed to rein in what it was meant for – control the extent of human liberties. In a clash of metaphysical philosophies, the intangibility of one led to the demise of the other. Let me be clearer. The evidences of culture that we see today, as the word “evidence” indicates, are what we see. This tangibility of culture (as a crucial part of the whole) is minimal when compared to the whole of the conglomeration of beliefs that it actually is. The larger and the core of the ‘culture’ is what lies within the closed spaces of our skulls, therefore intangible. I believe that no one has absolute control over the overabundance of thoughts and ideas that exist in the head. Keeping science fiction theories at an arm’s length, or even farther, no machine, human, animal, science, or object, or technique can detect and examine the vectors in the mind. Without doubting the intention the formulation of any method of social control, it is pertinent to point out that in the war of the two largest indefinable forces that run everything on earth; it is without any doubt that it is the enigmatic mind that wins.

I do not wish to argue the reasons for the development of religious beliefs. As much as I would like to believe that it happened for the good; that it is the same despite the difference; that it is true, it is difficult for me to believe that this is the same religion that can arouse hatred. As much as I would like to believe what the sincerest faithfuls have to tell me about the absolute truth that their religion is, I still will doubt its veracity because evidences point out to the existence of the “other” gods too. As much as I would like to believe the point that pious humanists make about the existence of religion being the ramifications of one soul, the one God, I still will question his line of reasoning because the teachings of God in these separate religion that are similar have certain references in them that put them in direct conflict with each other. Did God being all knowing not see the consequences of such an action? The immediate answer (from most faithfuls) would be that these are the handiworks of the devil, Satan. Why does God allow Satan take greater precedence over him? I am ignorant but I have questions that no one will be able to answer satisfactorily other than God or probably I lack the faith to understand, or the curiosity that is dissatisfied by a priest’s answer because he is human who is as susceptible to errors as much as I am. I do not doubt the existence of God. I suspect the reasons why different religions spawned during the same time (or around it, at least) carrying the same message of love, goodwill and peace and yet puts each other with direct conflict. I may be insolent but there is something that is very unclear and nobody has questioned it yet, blame it on blind faith. I dislike blind faith especially when it has the potential to lead to insanity.

Or perhaps, we seek refuge in others because we lack belief in our own internal systems.

Time and History

I am no revolutionary when it comes to national issues. Despite my efforts to not let minor national issues bother me, I am disturbed with the way history is taught in the classrooms. It is not fun anymore. I am not taking any efforts to adumbrate the revision of teaching methods, by the way. When we – my teacher and I – spoke about the India that was during the lovely 40’s and 50’s I missed being an elderly person! There is a side of history that was never explored by any teacher. History was synonymous with the clichéd ‘stories of the past’. Keeping aside the oft-explored condition of past prime time, the central theme of any history is its relevance to the most important factor that rules our lives – Time. Taking the cause and effect theory to levels to suit my stretches of liberty, the present and the future are all very calculative, that is, if we need to avoid disaster/ geo-political calamity. It is a pity that no scholar has ever tried to bring in the dimensions of the present and the future into the intricate subject of history. We study a part of the present that is the recent past.

It is amazing how time changes almost everything that lies in its course and the ramification of this adroit variation gives humanity something that he cannot do without – history. The past is history and somehow the future never transpired to be a segment of history, which by all rights should have been have been considered too simply because time forms and, is history. While history lessons in classrooms have always been interesting until as long as the teacher was witty and well informed. We must confess that the parallel of time is vast and, relics and sheaves of pages tucked together to form a rudimentary text to teach the illogical and recorded data of the past prime time have just done away further with addition of the ‘expert’ wisdom of a pretty, clairvoyant charlatan. While I believe I am digressing from what I had set to opine on I will not, in any way justify the present state of history that is studied by both students and academics. I am no Nehru in any way but I do feel very strongly about the relation of the past to the present and the future because of the importance of time in our very own personal lives.

I grew up as a solitary soul untouched by any feelings of fond affiliation to the milieu that I lived in. This fostered a desire to experience life through action has influenced all my thoughts and activity. To me, even a sustained form of action is a kind of action, which becomes a part of the actions to come. It is not something entirely abstract as it seems to be, but it is much unrelated to action and life. The past becomes something that leads up to the present, the moment of action, the future that something that flows from it; and all three are inextricably intertwined and interrelated. Even my seemingly actionless life is tacked somehow by some processes of thought and feeling, to coming or imagined action, and so it gains for me a certain content without which it would bring about a vacuous state to my environmental existence.

We all come late to history and, even then, not through the usual direct road of learning a mass of facts and dates and drawing conclusions and inferences from them, unrelated to your life or my life’s course. Therefore, as long as the present ‘Generation Y’ does that history has a little significance for all of us. If history were to be constructed to suit a philosophy that would help in analyzing life in very simple mathematical calculations, this world would be such a wonderful place to live in. History repeats. Why would it repeat if we learnt from history? There are many things to think about, I am sure.

I have not read much about the Crusades but I know they were bloody and gory. I try to avoid the conflict between science and religion because religion is a very touchy topic today. A friend, who is very religious, once told me that he is secular in his views but he is a hardcore fundamentalist when it comes to his religion. That rattled me a bit. This is a man who is widely respected by many. He is sensible; thinks with his head. He respects other’s religious views and faiths. Yet, he claims to be a fundamentalist when his religion mattered. I did not misunderstand when I heard him say this but I am just thinking of the million ‘jehadis’ who are respected, loved and are intelligent. This sudden surge of violence over the past two decades in the name of religion is a very, disturbing trend that would one day slowly kill humane optimism.

Very rarely has one given some thought towards balancing one's emotional urge and the essentiality of the importance of the said moment and time. It is not the tight-rope walk we make it out to be. It is more intricate, yet extremely effortless. I think the prescription for it is a very delicately fine balance. If harmony is what we seek, and not congruency in what we think, ideate, and want the solution lies in harmony. To achieve harmony, we ought to very finely balance between what we think, percieve, want, and what should be done. Difficult choices always bring the best results.