Choice - A limited and relative term

“They’re not mad. They’re trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.”

And so goes on the history of mankind as we know it……

How many curious minds do we find today amidst ourselves? Loads… but curiosity towards what may we ask? Curiosity towards the world we live in…no! Curiosity about the people who rule our world….no! Curiosity about what your neighbor is doing…Yes…let’s hear a hallelujah. Curiosity about how much money your co-worker has in his bank account…Yes…let’s hear it once again…Hallelujah!

‘What have we become?’ one could easily wonder. Yet, who we become is often something few of us have a choice in. You ‘be’ and for generations most of us ‘have been’ ignorant fools who have been driven around physically and mentally by a collective few who possess the powers of illusion.

These powers of illusion are not synonymous to those possessed by wizards or magicians but to the simple gift of the gab that creates sweet-talkers or diplomats or lobbyists. What they possess in their minds is the power of knowledge, the kind of knowledge that understands the basic human behavior and knows how, when and where it can or cannot be manipulated.

How do we know that the superpowers of today don’t manipulate the beliefs of jihadists to carry on a war which is needed for certain vested reasons? And in the name of war laws are passed “democratically” that takes away every last vestige of our freedom. That brings us to another important question - what is freedom?

Aren’t we all free to go shopping and buy more goods and consume, consume, consume till we die? Some may say that is freedom but how can that be freedom when the very act of consumption is something that has been created by the corporate world as a mechanism that keeps on increasing their profits? How can you keep leading a life that has been designed by someone else for you to live and yet call yourself free?

Even if you want to make a choice and are free to make a choice then look at the choices that exist - the choice between Pepsi or Coke…at some level both are the same…creations of corporate gods who want you to believe that you have freedom.

And the sad fact is that there isn’t any silver lining in this dark cloud.

Conversations and commitments

Conversations

...a people grown soft with an easy planet... Frank Herbert - Dune

Reading this quote in the Frank Herbert book called Dune raised a number of questions in my mind. The first thing that came to mind was this question: do we need to pass through tough conditions in life to become tough or are some people just born tough and some weak?

The answer to this came to me while talking to people I know.

While discussing a certain point with a friend about how we as individuals should stand up against forces in power on our planet and their manipulation and exploitation of us and our country's/planet's resources, i learnt that my friend's views were very different from mine. At first I couldn't fathom as to why an educated and well informed person like my friend would take such a stand. My friend's views about standing up to such forces was very straightforward and the gist of it was this - what can i as one man do and why should i take the trouble of solving issues that affect thousands or millions. I am not strong enough to fight these forces and if I try, in the end, the loss will be mine. It is better to just look after your gains in life and move on.

I was really disturbed by these replies and tried to reason it out with him but to no avail. I thought to myself that this was an outlook of an immature and childish mind or that of one still on the verge of adulthood.

In the evening i called my mom to catch up with her and during the conversation we seemed to hit the exact same note as i did with my friend. To my surprise my mom expressed the exact same view as my friend but also repeated to me the same lines that my friend had proffered by way of explanation. My friend lives in Australia and my mom in India. The two have never crossed paths. These combined incidents led me back to the quote i read in the book Dune.


..a people grown soft with an easy planet... Frank Herbert - Dune

There is a lot of truth in this quote. All we need to do is substitute the word "planet" with "life."

People who have never really fought for anything -(maybe petty everyday issues) but nothing that meant their life or their freedom or their children or something that they truly loved - have lost their zeal and vigor. They go on living from one day to another with no real goal or aim but to survive and prosper in the material world. Spiritual gains are limited to offerings made to their religions/religious organizations and other rituals. Soothing their conscience translates to donating a small sum for some cause. But to go out and do some real work is something they cannot even begin to consider. Even if rare moments of inspiration generate a spark, they quickly smother by finding reasons to not do it.

This is not a problem limited to one family, one state or one country; this is something that has dug in deep and rooted itself in the psyches of generation after generation of our species, resulting in the belief that as an individual, I need to take care of myself and my family...the world can go and blow itself up, so long as it's in my neighbor's yard.


We all choose are paths. One is to sit back and observe and criticize but not lift a finger to oppose the actions of those who are causing harm. The other way is to fight against the current and choose to do something about such issues. Many people think that by choosing the latter they will lose everything, but by choosing option 1, there are no guarantees that you won't loose anything and everything eventually, if you allow a corrupt system to thrive.

"If you don't take a chance, you don't stand a chance."
Unknown.

Survival

Survival

Evolution is one of the most fascinating phenomenons of all life on Earth. It is no hidden secret that all life on our planet has evolved to better adapt to their surroundings so as to continue to thrive and pass on their genes to the next generation.

One of the most interesting aspects of evolution though is how different life forms including plants adapt to their environment by a variety of means including changing their appearance and very way of life, to survive. The weakest animal is always an easy hunt and hence dies out before passing on its weak genes and the fittest survives to make the next generation faster and stronger.

This innate quality is found in all beings. One classic example is that of the turtles that come out in the dark of the night to lay their eggs in the soft sand on the beach. The birth of these new born turtles is nothing but a food festival for a number of other creatures who feast on them with relish, taking nourishment. Only the fastest or the strongest of these turtles survive the onslaught to make it to the sea and hence are able to pass on their genes to the next generation that promises to be better and stronger.

As humans we also have evolved as well. But our evolution has taken a different turn. The question that really hits me is what have we been evolving into? Unlike most animals who have changed physically to adapt to their environment to survive the onslaught of predators who hunt them, humans have evolved mentally.

This can be looked upon as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, our standard of living in all aspects has improved immensely from what it used to be a few centuries ago on the other hand lies the darker results of our mental evolution.

Just like the animals, our world too belongs to the fittest of survivors; however, this fitness doesn’t refer so much to the physical aspect anymore but to the mental faculty – brains in place of brawn. In short then, survival of the fittest, when it comes to mankind, alludes to the survival of the most cunning human. By using our mental abilities to trick and outsmart, today we have found ways to eschew the beheading or killing of thousands with blades. Instead we play political and diplomatic games that result in starvation and death of numerous people. Just because there is no direct killing, however, doesn’t mean people aren’t dying because of brutal regimes and certain bully countries.

The more cunning you are the richer and more powerful you get over a period of time and successfully pass on these genes to the next generation making life on our planet even worse as more and more cunningness is passed on to our offspring. These cunning beings also make sure that the remainder of our population remains dumb and does not see them for what they really are. In some places they do this by refraining from developing communities who are so involved in survival at the most basic levels that it’s unthinkable for them to pay any attention to the world stage of politics. In other places, this strategy takes on the alluring form of TV. Major media channels and newspapers are further manipulated like puppets that pay far more attention to “tabloidisque” or sensational pieces of news as opposed the urgent truth that is crying out to be told (think Somalia, Erythria, Panama, Sierra Leone, and several more countries).

It was a BBC documentary on evolution that got me thinking on these lines. But it was after watching an eye-opening documentary called Occupation 101 that I was able to see the unappealing big picture which tells but one story of the many that run on similar themes. The documentary talks about the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. How many of us are truly aware of the details of what has been going on in that region for decades? Why does mainstream media not highlight the plight of the Palestines who are dying in hundreds of thousands while focusing so much on the deaths of people in the 9/11 crash? Does this mean that some nationalities are more valuable than others and therefore deserve more media attention?

Time and time again, it basically comes down to our desire to seek the truth and gain knowledge so we can act as responsible citizens of the world and not only make informed decisions when choosing our leaders but hold them accountable for the acts they precipitate.

Here’s a link to the documentary if you’re interested in finding out the truth. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2451908450811690589&ei=T_oeS7-PL5CEwgPp2I3rDQ&q=occupation+101#

Knowledge, as we know, is power.
BUT
"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge….” – Stephen Hawking.