Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Human versus ?

Every single passing minute convinces me that the Divine begins where man ends. The politically correct claims of the Divine being in everything and especially in every human being is at best ridiculous. I see no divinity in human beings whatsoever, at least, the ones I interact with. Every interaction with each one of them reveals and further establishes that pettiness rules the roost. I am probably mutating into a misanthrope, but I was never a philanthrope in my life. I had had hope, though. Now, I have none.
A sense of rightness has started to recede with the passing day. The current sense of rightness is so tightly coupled with political correctness that the latter has overwhelmed the former into a new sense of rightness. Gone are the days when virtue had some value. Today people will not turn around and look at you if there was nothing in it for them. They wouldn't enquire into your well being or misfortune if they have no future with you. They will not look at an event or a decision objectively if that stance threatens their own well-being and pride. They will do anything for 15 min of fame but do nothing for permanence. They will not consider ethics in the face of societal displeasure (and I am criminal here too but in a very different sort of way). People are only alive to keep themselves alive.
People are (as the agent in Matrix says) very close to being viruses. They are purely focused on their own interests, on their own propagation, on their own greedy wants, under their own salivating mind's spell. People are quick to claim their right to be loved, but have no inclination towards working towards loving someone. Love, anyway, is the most stupid thing which is passed around like a joint. People expect others to follow rules and be considerate, but in turn would skip all of that without batting an eyelid. I feel more and more comfortable with lesser and lesser people around me.
I have always lived in the illusion that it is with other people that we can make this world a better place to live in. It is in the joy of togetherness that lasting bliss can be found. It is communion and selflessness that creates a world of smiles. It is decency that keeps the world going strong (I still believe in this). (I never believed in love so no illusions there. I think I was not even in my teens when I realised that this whole notion of singularly concentrated love was a sham) The illusion is fading and fast. People are no longer relevant beyond the barter. As long as there is the vegetable vendor, the milkman, the launderer, the cab driver, the electrician, the plumber and the like, there is no need for anything else. If there are fellow workers (writers, software engineers, investment bankers, football players, readers, et al) then they are sufficient relatives. I mean real workers and not nincompoops who bring along their bad childhood or domestic woes. People who do their work the way it is supposed to be done (and I love Ayn Rand only for that one dialogue in her books "I've hired you to do a job, not to do your best-whatever that is." Funnily that is the same line that vision-lackers would use.). I think such people make a better world as they also tend to have relationships based on decency and rightness. And such people suffice. It is without their pettiness and greed that man becomes an acceptable companion and maybe, in finer Springs, Divine.
I am sure that the reader is quick to move away from this post as "Yet, another E calling the world dirty and I-am-holier-than-thou." I would be more than glad to have that reader move far away from this blog. If I have wronged, I am willing to correct myself but that doesn't absolve this world of its dirt. People abound who consider that everything is right in this world because they have no intent or energy to see things as they are and work towards correcting them. A sense of sufficiency exists which allows compromise in a manner of a bargain and favour. But I do not understand how or why one should compromise with immoral people. If something is wrong but should be passed or accepted as ok merely because the wrong-doer is your boy-friend, mother, wife, boss or (this takes the cake) your spiritual guru doesn't make sense. If this person was your mortal enemy, would you excuse him/her?
Life is not about right and wrong, they say. It sure isn't once it is based on it. How else would life find a basis? Consider basing all of life on things that change by the minute as your conviction of right and wrong keep changing. What you have is next to personal hell. Once life is based on a wise sense of right and wrong, thereafter, life can evolve into matters which are beyond right and wrong, but a life with the quivering uncertainty of rightness as its substratum cannot ever go beyond the realm of meticulous measurement or even beyond the stages of tricking oneself into believing that so-n-so is ok and acceptable. In a place where all action is driven by a near Divine sense of rightness, one can afford delving into facets other than the binary right or wrong. How can something without a strong base ever rid itself of concerns of forming a strong foundation?
When people need to be instructed and reminded about demonstrating genuine concern, about human decency, about objective rightness, about fairness, about instinctive morality, those days will always be gloomy and without a reason to smile. Why does anyone find it surprising that there is no permanent cheer on earth? There cannot be any until man ceases to be man.

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