Wherever I May Roam

It troubles me when I'm unable to catch up with the speed at which my thoughts travel; viz. quite often.
They go around the universe & come back, as if from behind me, mildly out of breath with a sly grin on their countenance - as if they are mocking me at my inability to be a co-traveller in these unbelievable odysseys they take everyday.

Love, anyone?

What happens when we see a beautiful face? What is it that draws our attention and keeps us captivated for a few moments before we move on or go back to what we were doing? Is it just the aesthetic splendour? Intended only as a lovely distraction from the mart of economic strife and gain, and nothing else? Or is it the undying need to be associated with anything majestic (enough) to raise our social standing? Or maybe both?

What happens when we fall in love? As a result of certain stimuli, the hypothalamus releases a powerful discharge of endorphins.

But why exactly that woman or that man? Is the release of odourless pheromones that correspond or complement the genetic signals or is it the physical features that we recognise? A mother’s eyes, a friend’s laughter, a smell that stimulates a happy memory.

Is love, part of the plan? A vast war plan between two modes of reproduction?

Bacteria and viruses are asexual organisms. With each cell division each multiplication they mutate and perfect themselves much more quickly than we do. Against this we respond with the most fearsome weapon: sex. Two individuals, by mixing their genes, shuffle the cards and create an individual who resists viruses better. Are we unknowing participants in war between two modes of reproduction? And love, our reliable alibi in this war?

Why do we NEED a catastrophe?

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) – an atomic Physics laboratory – has been in news recently for their new far-reaching experiment of deciphering the basic fabric of our universe by smashing otherwise innocuous protons together at very high speeds.

However, the news has been taken very differently in different parts of the world. In Andhra Pradesh, a girl committed suicide on September 11 fearing that the world will end as a result of the ongoing experiment in Geneva.

Scientists suggest that there is a miniscule possibility of something like that happening. The possibility would might only be 1%, but let us for a moment consider, what if the same possibility would have been a large number, say 70%. Then there would certainly be a palpable change in people’s behaviour; their perception about themselves and others.

For instance, not having more than a few years to live, and with chances of pardon remote, a significant number of death row inmates become more at peace within and the world. Some turn to philosophy or religion but very few attempt suicide or take on a ‘how-does-it-matter-any-more’ attitude.

But consider if scientists told us there was a 100% certain chance of total destruction. Very rarely do people walking to their deaths rant and rave. Victims of war, religious persecution or political hangings almost always believe there is a higher ideal to die for.

Funnily enough, 100% chance of death is exactly what we face in life! Yet what is it that stops us from gaining that same insight?

The day we realise that we are not going to live forever will liberate us from a life wasted in anticipating a death we do not like to believe in.

Philosophy (inspired by William James Durant)

Is it true, that there is a pleasure in philosophy, and a lure even in the mirages of metaphysics, which every student feels until the coarse necessities of physical existence drag him from the heights of thought into the mart of economic strife and gain??

"Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt." -Bacon

So much of our life is meaningless and futile; we strive with the chaos about us and within; but we would believe all the while that there is something vital and significant in us, could we but decipher our own souls.
Science always seems to advance, while philosophy always seems to lose ground. This is because philosophy accepts the hard and hazardous task of dealing with problems not yet open to the methods of science - problems like good & evil, beauty & ugliness, order & freedom, life & death. Every science begins as philosophy and ends as art. Philosophy is the hypothetical interpretation of the unknown or of the inexactly known, it is the front trench in the siege of truth. Science is captured territory; and behind it are those secure regions in which knowledge and art build our imperfect and marvellous world. Philosophy seems to stand still, perplexed; but only because she leaves the fruits of victory to her daughters: the sciences, and herself passes on, divinely discontent, to the uncertain and unexplored.

Perception (borrowed)

Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one can be certain. And yet there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway train comes rushing down the track, and the snowflake will fall, as it will. How can this be? If
nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple.
Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given-so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece. Time, however, can be easily overcome; not by chasing light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is-and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful.
In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run fun to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but as something that is.

time for a change

Oscar Wilde once remarked, “education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”
Our present education system has its roots in the early nineteenth century. It is really ironic to address such a pristine establishment as our ‘present education system’. Our innate ability to maintain such a level of mediocrity in changing times of industrial revolution and information technology is certainly laudable. Considering the fact that India is an independent republic since half a century, all these facts make a mockery of the firm ground of chauvinistic certitude we so confidently tread.
The foundation of our current education system was laid by the British. And the only palpable reason why our education system is the way it is because the British never wanted any Indian to participate in any form of legislative, administrative or judicial vocation. The British only wanted to make slaves and clerks out of the Indians. And that is precisely what we still are. If that is not how it is, then pray tell me why aren’t there any jobs for students who have completed their schooling, no matter how meritorious they might have been. What happens to those twelve years of learning if a student decides to call it quits due to certain unavoidable reasons, the prominent being financial incapacity. Does that lad deserve to serve as a clerk his entire life?
In many developed countries, college education is pursued by people who are interested in it and have time for it. I mention time because those people are already making a living for themselves. But in India, college education is imperative. Although, even being a graduate does not entitle you to earn a decent living.
Even in technical educational courses such as engineering, similar examination paragon is followed. The students are expected to mug and cram up as much as they can, and then barf the contents on the examination answer sheet. I believe many people will agree with me that this is not the optimal approach of imparting technical education.
I consider the bottom up approach to be a far more sound approach for technical instruction. Give the apprentice a blueprint to design or develop an idea and then teach all the nuances and skills involved to give life to that scheme. That will create more aficionados than the current system does.
It is a pity to witness that we are still falling prey to the ‘cheap labour’ ploy of foreign nations and gratify our pecuniary palates by earning a trifling amount of money by working in call centres and software companies, the act which in-turn fuels the sustenance of the system which we are rebelling against. It is about time that we pause and ponder, in retrospect, and act to make a change that will hopefully be for the betterment of the coming contemporaries.

Apologue

Once upon a very long time,
two waves crashed into one another;
the scene was watched over by a mime,
all alone,
as there was no other.

The waves were blue and lachrymose,
quite certain of what lies ahead;
they had every reason to be wistful and morose,
coz the world they yeaned was already dead.

Nobody wrote a final and defining lyric,
and the requiem is playing 57 octaves below B flat;
everybody is just enjoying the debauching music,
without even wondering what they are getting at.

But still there are people who keep mundane issues at bay,
and inherently seek answers with zeal and persistence;
quoting an 18th century philosopher as i always say,
we seek to escape the anguish of being in the distraction of existence.