Something Personal!

Why do I think I am stupid? Perhaps it's because I make a fool of myself again and again. But from foolery comes enlightenment. And enlightenment is the goal, right?

So yes, in the quest for enlightenment, I've made the same mistakes repeatedly and frequently but none so rewarding as trusting people. Yes, very few chosen one but I've trusted people; I trusted them to grow beyond what they are and with all my might and my skill and all that I've got I tried to inspire and encourage them to do so. I wanted them to change, to move on or to move off, I don't mind that, you see? But they, they just held on to me while they stayed. They wanted me to stop.

Perhaps, I was happy with them but I've often felt the fleeting nature of happiness and hence I never preferred staying. And then they say I can't build relationships which at times, I've felt too. But I can build relationships, I can create structures and I like creation. It's just that I don't want to stay in what I created. When I can always create something else, why would I be not doing it?

I don't know, perhaps learning to stay might be the right way but I can't stand the silence, the silence that always ensues through inactivity. Like that, I like silence which lets you free but not the kind that consumes you and traps you inside its hollowness. And if you have observed, you can't do much, if you are trapped, other than yell and complain.But who knows? Perhaps, I am stupid for thinking like this. Perhaps, I am stupid for thinking at all.  

And yeah, you might be thinking what kind of enlightenment did I get from doing this. It's a difficult question. Or perhaps the question is simple enough but the answer? You might want to find your answer yourself because I am not telling you! :D      

A Monologue!

I think I am still the camel turning into the lion, and the child is awaiting me.

Smile dear brother, smile. Not that innocent smile, the crooked smile. Because we all know! We are all part of that horde we call humanity. Don’t be reluctant! Let the putrid smell of humanity be inhaled. Let it stink. Let not our fake innocence deceive us anymore!

Why do you fret? Is it because I have seen the ugly truth? But didn't you know it all the while? Wasn't that our legacy all along?

Think about our civilisations, our cultures.
Don’t they make you proud anymore? Why? Is it because of the lies they were built upon – lies more evanescent than the clouds? Or are you thinking about what all have we not done to keep these lies sacred?

And yet we reek of honesty! Is that the reason for your apprehension?
Don’t worry about honesty, dear brother. It’s a pungent parable for the prosaic of lives.
Don’t go behind it, it blandishes the mind with rewards so resplendent that it has blinded many an eye.

Remember those wars; those thousands of wars, millions of killings. The rains have washed away the stains from the body and the ground but what of the heart? What could ever erode the sins of the heart?

Oh, the regret, the remorse, the guilt!

Now read me about your virtues. Why? You feel they are sardonic?

But isn't that inherently human? Aren't we the temporal always in search of the eternal? So why would our values be anything more?

Once, we found faith. We explored it. Weren't our lives entirely dependent on it for a while? But then we used it – each one of us used it for ourselves. And now we are against it. But by then we found reason. We are exploring it. But how much time, do you think, would it take for man to turn against reason?

Why have you burdened your soul with loads not your own?  Aren't you weary? Perhaps you are lost. Verily, it’s time for you to leave yourself so that you can seek yourself. Let the gospels and the facts be forgotten, but let not yourself be drifted into oblivion under their veils.

You are here in the river of time. Let the stinking smell be washed off.
There are fishes and parasites, don’t let them drag you and harm you, for they are envious of those who want to fly. Be above and beyond them for you struggle against yourself for yourself.

Now, won’t you go? It’s time for you to craft your horizon!

P.s.: Inspired from Friedrich Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' The first line is in reference to the book.

From A Crowded Street...

As I walk through the crowded streets, horns screeching behind me and people loitering around me, I wondered with disdain the terrible lack of purpose or identity in the vile lives of these people.

But somehow and suddenly I asked myself, who am I to condescend? What is my identity? What purpose do I fulfil?

Interesting and intriguing thought, eh? As the long road with its monotonous pattern of potholes crawls beneath me, my thoughts assumed a similar path, never reaching a turning or a junction. And abruptly it reminded me of a bookseller I had met a few days back who said that one’s life is for doing and doing is all that we do and nothing else matters.

Ok, so does that mean ‘doing’ is the purpose of life? Then what should I do? Since I don’t much encourage myself to think about future, I thought about today and I decided that I should write a poem today.

Ah! Then my purpose at this moment is to write a poem. What about my identity? Am I a poet?

Perhaps yes; perhaps no. I am in the process to begin thinking about writing a poem. But I have written some poems already, so does that make me a poet? Or am I a poet only when I am writing a poem? Perhaps I am a poet when I am enjoying myself while writing a poem and when I satisfy myself almost to the point of saturation by completing what I started.

Then I am a poet only for myself and my identity as a poet is only for that moment, isn’t it?
What am I after that? Just a mass of interlinked organic matter?
Oh! Come on! I crave to be more than that!

My thoughts don’t go any further. So, as of yet, I conclude that every moment that passes bestows on me a new identity which constitute to form a set of similar successive identities identified as ‘Sarath Warrier’ by my environment due to the similar kind of relationship that this self-conscious, egocentric mass of interlinked organic matter exercises with his surrounding environment.
    

Now that we have reached a conclusion about me, you might want to think about the ‘vile people’.

By the way, Who are YOU? 

On Social Relationships

What is relationship?

Relationship can be defined as a voluntary cooperation between individuals who have mutual needs and sometimes complimentary skill sets. Thus for a relationship to be established there should be a need which can be satisfied to a greater extent by cooperating with another individual who has needs of his own.

In today’s society, the relationships are sometimes (often) formed through peer-pressure. Nonetheless, even such relationships satisfy some of our needs.

So what could be our needs?

The evolutionary objective of life is survival of oneself and then one's own species. To achieve the first and basic objective, two things are required and these requirements constitute the basic needs. These basic needs are food (and a continuous supply of that) and security. To achieve the latter objective, sexual needs also gets added to the basic needs. 

So how did relationships develop?

Sexual relationships should have been the first kind of relationships but such relationships are more personal in nature and not social.

The initial kind of social relationship must have arisen due to the need for security combined with the natural diversities in physical strength and in intellect of people. Thus this relationship would be of protection. In a group everyone is a protector for everyone else. As the group realised the other fields in which they could cooperate, the initial relationship might have then developed, so that everyone is a hunter/food-gatherer for everyone else. Further this transformed into a relationship of sharing food. Since the norms of 'founders keepers' and 'first-come first preference' might not have lasted long, there arose a necessity to divide/share food according to one's contribution. This meant that the type and amount of contribution towards the collective survival of the society would be judged. Since the one who judges the amount of contribution would obviously be the strongest or the most intelligent, and due to the fact that man is inherently selfish, the earlier mentioned diversities slowly became grounds for discrimination.

 

So what?

To judge the 'amount of contribution'; to discriminate is essentially a power, rather it is the power in any society, and because power has an innate tendency to get concentrated, soon the ‘share’ of food became entitlements. This combined with development of agriculture and settled life resulted in property rights. All this along with the advent of money (which complements and supplements power and vice-versa) meant that in such a society, where the survival of any individual is dependent on the infinite and complicated snare of relationships that he/she maintains with every other member of the society, will always have, in all strata, two classes: the rulers and the ruled; the exploiters and the exploited; the 'judge' and the 'judged'.

So what can be (could have been) done? What is the solution?

I think we can find a solution if we could only stick to the definition of relationship.

If we analyse the definition, it is quite clear that relationship when existing between a few people can more efficiently achieve its objectives while more number of relationships not only complicates survival but also renders it meaningless since we don’t have a survival of our own.

Hence I feel that the number of social relationships and through that the dependence of a person, for survival, on others should be kept at minimum.

Thus a more perfect society would be where there are relationships only to the size of a family, and where such a ‘family’ is self-sufficient and doesn't need any reimbursements from the rest of the society.

In such a situation, a family would be an entire independent 'society' in itself.  

Only in such a society can there be comparative equality and justice.

A Narrow Minded take on Evolution!

The decay of our natural values is what we have ultimately achieved through the millions of years of evolution.

A rat wouldn't commit suicide just because a cat is troubling it; but we just might!

That's what we have achieved. We have lost the most prominent value of all: the value of self-preservation. We would kill or get killed over the most trivial of causes and still brag about it.

It is our reluctance to give up these materialistic things and the greed to achieve them that has led us to this never ending chaos that we call society.

The attachment to these materialistic objects is growing stronger and stronger. Man is so obsessed with them that he would give his life protecting them and even take his own kin's life conquering them.

The future is tragic. The reality won’t make any sense. The dreams will be the only resort for it can only be in the dreams that man can have a glimpse at peace and happiness.

But how can a man sleep when he will be too alert in his defense from his own kin? 

---Sarath Warrier---

A Cat-Dog Analogy !

Independence and Freedom are virtues that we all cherish. The goriest wars in history were only waged to preserve these values. In fact they are the cornerstones of modern-day lifestyles. And I am quite sure that you wouldn't have failed to notice a difference between cats and dogs in this respect.

Dogs have masters while Cats have servants. The dogs famous for their loyalty and selflessness are actually the ones who lack any kind of freedom or independence. They have their own fixed time to go out or to sleep, fixed meal, fixed bed everything of which is decided by the master. While on the other hand, Cats would eat when they want, sleep when and where they want, go out when they want and simply they don’t care what their master ‘staff’ tells them. 

But why is this difference? What is the origin of this difference?

It’s quite simple actually: Cats don’t trust anybody, not even their owners. Dogs have a strong faith that whatever their masters tell them is for their own good while Cats decide it for themselves. They don’t trust in others’ predicaments. And if you look closely, the nature’s best survivors are those who don’t trust anybody. Take the example of a crow. If you feed birds regularly most of them would not be alarmed by your close proximity but that’s not the case with a crow. It will either attack or flee, if it senses any unusual movements or proximity.

So why is lack of trust so important to independence and survival?

Again its quite simple, when you trust someone to do something, you are actually relieving your responsibilities; you are being dependent on him which obviously takes away the complete independence. And by not fulfilling your responsibilities yourself, you are missing an opportunity to perfect yourself and giving it to someone else. And going with Natural Selection, the more perfect you are, the more ensured your survival is. And frankly speaking, our society is a vicious cycle of trust! No one can fulfill their responsibilities on their own; no one can survive on their own.

But the truly dismaying question is: What is trust? How can we define trust?

Science, as we know, is the most reliable form of knowledge and its reliability is because of its testability. But can we know how reliable a person is? Science emphasizes on relying on any kind of knowledge only after it is proved. But then trust is, by definition, meaningless.  Then how come we built a whole new system, so unlike from what nature gave us, from something as hollow and obsolete as trust?

The questions, the answers, the ways of life and the ways of thinking are all being contradictory to each other and still each one of them can be true all the time and we cannot do anything else but being helpless. 

But I don’t want to be just helpless, so I ask you Who do you want to be: a Dog or a Cat?


--- Sarath Warrier---

The Beginning

The beginning always decides the journey and here is the first post of my blog.

Let me introduce myself as an amateur, wannabe writer with some out of the box ideas about almost everything I see. I will try to narrate those ideas of mine through this blog just to make sure, from time to time, that I am not the only one who has such thoughts.

The posts are exclusively my views and don’t mean to offend anyone’s sentiments. I am open to discussions and you are free to comment, like, guide, judge, criticize or even curse my views.

I hope you will be enjoying my blog.     

--- Sarath Warrier---