Analysis leads to Paralysis

Which leg should I put forward first?
If it should be the right, how would I know its the right thing to do?
And if its right thing to do, will it end up with the right result?


And even if it ends rightly, will I have missed out a paths leading to a better result?
Above everything else how do I know this is the path destiny intents for me?
So Should I even put anything forward?

Free Radicals

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the Catholic Church. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the radical Martin Luther.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the British Empire. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the half-naked radical Gandhi.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was Feudalism. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came a radical concept called Socialism.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man became either its employee or wannabe. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the corporate IBM. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the radicals Steve Jobbs and Bill Gates.

Once upon a time there lived a monstrous dragon. It grabbed on anything it wanted and each day brought added new areas under its wings. The common man people became either its slave or prey. It had huge wealth stacked up in its lair, collected over time from its conquests. This dragon was the United States of America. It had no worthy matches and it lived forever….or so it thought until along came the radicals called terrorists.


OK, you get the pattern.

All the above dragons are today diseased and/or weak.
All the above radicals were influenced, if not the product, by the respective dragons.

And?
What happened to the radicals now?

They just mutated into different sorts of … dragons!

Martin Luther’s bold act inspired and gave birth to a whole generation of radical Protestants. Born out of revolt; awakened out of suppression; blinded by their concepts; these ‘believers’ collectively form the Hydra, the dragon of the new age. It cannot be reasoned with. Cut of one of its head and ten others form in its place.

Mahatma Gandhi’s bold act inspired and gave birth to a whole country of radical satyagrahis. Born out of revolt; blinded by their concepts; the awakened cattle class knew and practiced only civil disobedience. To the point, that the whole country spawned a generation of non-performers with zero civic sense. The general Indian carelessness is today its own terror, its own dragon to fear.

Socialism inspired and gave birth to a whole generation radical communists. Born out of revolt; awakened out of suppression; blinded by their concepts; this workers union polarized the world into two, brought promising countries to a grinding halt, sucked the excitement out of their citizen’s life. Though weakened now, they were once collectively the Hydra, the dragon of the new age. It cannot be reasoned with. Cut of one of its head and ten others form in its place.

Bill Gates and his contemporaries inspired and gave birth to a valley! Born out of ingenuity and entrepreneurship these fresh and exciting companies have today grown big, fat and as corporate as the original adversary dragon. Corporate career has today become nothing but a joke. Look around you and you can map a Dilbert strip somewhere.

USA’s acts inspired and gave birth to a whole generation of radicals called LTTE, PLO, IRA, Taliban and ISI. Born out of revolt; awakened out of suppression; blinded by their concepts; these ‘freedom fighters’ collectively form the Hydra, another of the dragons of the new age. It cannot be reasoned with. Cut of one of its head and ten others form in its place.


And? And the cycle will continue. It would be interesting to learn now how the Hydra can be contained.

Self-Imprisonment

Maintaining the quality of the relationships within one’s network maybe quite useful. Not really for altruistic reasons, but useful for at least one’s own good living. The better the relationship maintenance coupled with the depth of one’s reach within their network, the better it is for one’s own quality of life; while it may be not presently the situation then definitely in good time. By reach I meant one’s network being as big as possible. Knowing more people and keeping good relationships certainly helps in generating ‘good luck’ – opportunities for better life/helping hand/good fortune etc. In short, it pays to have a high likeability quotient.

It can also be said that doing the opposite can provide the negative results too. This is clearly apparent with individuals who are generally bashful, inconsiderate to the people around them, with few friends and/or pessimistic to life itself.


I know of a fortunate yet unfortunate person; a very experienced yet immature person; an educated yet ignorant person. Hmmmm…aren’t we all this way?

Fortunate I say because at the time I began closely observing this person he seemed to get the best things in life very easily while the majority of us had to struggle very hard for the same. Some of us had agreed then that he is in the right place at the right time. He earned in tons, got his way in situations, everybody knew him and used to command the steering wheel of life. That would make him wealthy, successful and famous in our envious eyes.

Unfortunate I say because nobody actually likes him. At least nobody that I know who also knows him. The person I am talking about, to say the least, is arrogant, a corporate bully, extremely manipulative, irritatingly talkative and flamboyantly egoistic. And the worse part: his act in life (in landmark education terms :-) ) is “I am right and all the useless rest of you are wrong”. Yup it’s hard to change him. The guy never listens and he adamantly believes he is right. in fact he once adviced me: “Making enemies is the norm in a successful corporate career. What’s wrong?”

How long can the stray good fortune go on for people like this? And here is my observation.

Like the person mentioned above, when one start the interesting phases of life (like career) they are in a space like the white space in the box. The space can be as big as the box boundaries. So many possibilities in life, so many opportunities, endless vistas and there is excitement.

Naturally, very soon one would encounter a problem: an obstacle in their way in the white space. For the kind of individual like the above person, the problem would almost always be a relationship issue. The momentum in excitement and confidence would not allow the individual to bow down. And if not resolved one creates a virtual fence. A fence that cuts that leg of our relationship network; that limits the opportunities in one’s life from that network; that which is only an interference to the positive opinion signal across the relationship network; in the macro level, limits our luck factor. "But so what?! Who the hell needs that relationship anyway? One has the rest of the space around it for life." So, the haughty one go ahead in full steam.

What next? The attitude lands one in yet another problem in life. Promptly he creates another fence for himself.

“Bah! Just another fence in the infinite space. The opportunities are endless.”

 

And a few years later …

Guess what are loud taglines at this junctures:
“Life is this way, it sucks” ,
“Shit happens”,
“Everyone is a fool”,
“I don’t need anybody”,
“Who needs friends anyway”, “What good they bring?”,
“You know my child, I have learnt not to trust anybody in life”

The Ugly side

Cultured, humane, civilized and chosen even are we human beings while the rest of the beings are ‘animals’. Or are we ... yet?

The Homo sapiens, like any other in the animal kingdom, have always been competing for survival. Competing with other animals and competing with similar animals. It was instinctual for our shaggy forefather apes hunt, fight, kill and procreate on a regular basis. Over the million years, this allowed the survival of the fittest and the survival of the species.

 Showing-off strength, reinforcing dominance and being ruthless were very important (especially masculine) human traits … to ensure survival. If not: one could go hungry, get hurt, lose their breeding partner or worse lose their life. So back in the Stone ages: One would kill & hunt when one wished; grabbed thy neighbour's food or partner if need be or just kill if one didn't like that jerk. So in a way life was quite ‘simple’ cause and effect J

A little later in history: larger groups of humans, called communities, slightly changed the scene for the greater good. They enforced certain norms to maintain order within. But an individual’s violent side was quite useful; very frequently in the still tough and wild times.

Forward thousands of years: civilizations had sprung up and died; cities and societal-structures increased in complexity; generally security had greatly improved but only within the cloud of a kingdom but the violent-side of Homo sapiens was still active. How can what was conditioned over a million-year be reversed in a shorter time? The species just found new ways to keep alive the animistic subconscious of the past. Why else should there have been invasions, plunder, imperialism, tortures, roman-circuses, wars, inquisitions, genocides, apartheid and orgies? These are manifestations of the instincts of dominance, hunt, greed and competition … but with only more ‘civilized’ labels. Even sport is but a non-violent release for human violent-side!

Enter the space age: We look back to see how far we have come. From shaggy bent apes to the hairless, straight and obese Homo sapiens. Food and personal security is at its best ever. Violence is a trait relegated to savages. The kings are dead; Democracy and citizen-rights are the new religions. We have progressed and civilized a lot ... but only externally. Internally still not far away.

The unfortunate side of these new-world paradigms is that it acts like cages. The time-span, across many millenniums since being ‘civilized’, has still not liberated us from our urges but rather only suffocated them in more claustrophobic mental cages. And so we keep alive our forefathers’ cravings: Carving for all things material (we never had enough) and craving for power (the shortcut to control the others). We are still not cleared off from the scars from the past. Behavioral patterns forged over time by our forefathers still lie dormant (until piqued) in our sub-consciousness’.

The animal instincts from that very difficult past have not erased from the centuries of civilizing but only make us behave or act in very odd ways. Sometimes this programming from the past can manifest within an individual in very anti-social ways. Actually one shouldn't be surprised by the horrific reports of physical abuse, gang-wars, rapes, and psychopathic murders etc. that continue to this day. One could argue that these heinous crimes are not committed by us but some minority others. Yes true, they are committed by the ‘active-program’ runners (the violent-side resurfacing) only.

The rest of us passive runners only read or watch...while somebody else is doing it! Ever wondered why the newspapers and news channels gives all the obscene or disgusting details? It is because the public ‘need’ or rather demand for it. Movies enable us to (at least) watch simulated violence and perversion. Why is pornography so in vogue? Because it sells! Pornography gives us the option of relishing on ANY sexual perversion you can possibly think off without the guilt of actually performing it! Wondered why there were so many cabaret dances and rape scenes in Indian cinemas? Same reason: We wanted it!

And what are these reality shows after all? They are nothing but entertainment drawn from the exposure of the ‘normal life’ of people (mostly celebrities). And by the normal we mean to expose of the people’s vulnerability to the dark side … in real time: greed, lust, power, desperation etc.

Take the other example of the competition shows littering the channels. It is all about dominance again. C-O-N-T-R-O-L, as if the judges decide somebody’s fate or career. And what is it that we the audiences are most interested in here? Not the gleam on the faces of who wins but the defeat on the faces of who is out! A funny side of these types of shows is that the sponsors almost always manage to get judges who are third-grade in that particular field of expertise :-)

 

 

Consider simple everyday things as a joke: realize that almost always a joke is centered on putting down one of the characters in the joke! Belittle, embarrass or ridicule. Funny isn’t it? Ever wondered why we crack jokes and laugh in the first place? It is our way of expressing our own superiority over the other. Baring teeth (while we laugh) is common in the animal kingdom also … for the same reason!

Narcissist Era

George Romero should be smiling at the way the world is progressing or rather regressing. The situation now is almost like in one of his creations: it is hell on earth. Though a fan of horror flix, I first watched one of his zombie movies with a sense of disgust; I thought: whose perverted imagination is this? But in 2004 when I watched one of the most mind-troubling movies I have seen, Dawn of the Dead *, I realized! The seemingly nonsensical theme turned interesting, as I was able to sync with its creator's mind.

Maybe the concept of the Kaliyug is right; it seems everyone (not excluding myself) is now vehemently only after money, power, respect and recognition.

• We want money to be able to indulge and to buy respect
• We want to control but not to be controlled
• We want to covet, we covet and want to be coveted.

Unfortunately the motivators and their liners have only added feul to the raging fire: the "Just do it", "I make the rules", "Do whatever" and "Go get it" attitude we have imbibed from the environment around us has only fostered self-centeredness and ruthlessness.

If that’s on one end what’s happening at the other?

One does not not see much morality prevailing anywhere let alone spirituality. Not even in the new-age reformists/apostles let alone the traditionalists. Faith is lost, distrust is in.

As if it isnt chaos already out there we are all also becoming like the zombies, infected by the majority around us. Hope in the near future is bleak but some serious damage to mankind is probable. Detachment seems like the only prevention from insanity; Surfing the chaotic waves seems like the only way to live.

On the bright side, everything that has a beginning has an end. Epidemics, slowdowns, fads et al should eventually dip. At least thats what Malcolm Gladwell’s and Steve Levitt’s books infers so. Such situations cannot be last but that they can do a lot of damage before they subside. Fungi colonies (watch them on rotting food) are like these. They spread/multiply and grow astonishingly fast. But one fine morning they seem to disappear. The most common reason for this sudden disappearing act is that the very base on which they grew got transformed. Sad thing is this will take some time in such a world situation.

 

* The apocalyptic feeling and the hopelessness portrayed in the film were too nightmarish for me. To top it all, in the theatre seat I forced to sit put while I was being bitten and sucked blood off…. all over my body by bugs :-)

Spiritual Zombie

The title makes no sense and so does the ‘faiths’ of the times. Not targeting the mushrooming Christian evangelist sects alone, which of course am not in agreement with. It is widely known that the situation in other religious streams are not any soulful. But it’s always easier and accepted to criticize one’s own.

There is no faith left, religions have become redundant. Church seems like a mass drama. The clergy is looked upon like a bunch of clowns. To 'save’ mankind from these deteriorating religions and the chocking intra-religion politics, we have now even more Preachers, Pastors, Philosophers and Priests. Not over: blind fundamentalists, bigots and fanatics; the noise from their rallies, media channels and conventions; their littering posters, pamphlets and banners; and their chauvinism, persuasiveness and narrow-minded reasoning.

I suggest one does some introspection and a course in spirituality before looking for these new-age quick fixes. To start with read H.G. Well’s book 'Country of the Blind’. The work gives insight into the difference between religion and spirituality.

Spirituality and faith, I feel, are very personal things and are not other peoples’ business. Spirituality is one’s journey to find the truth. Religion, on the other hand, is like a generic ‘template’ for spirituality, which suffices for some for whom habits and routines are powerful enough to transform. But for many this approach with spirituality is evidently ineffective. Then religion becomes only the hinderance to salvation and a mask one puts on for identity.

My stand: There are as many paths for spirituality as there are the numbers of humans!

One savior or prophet or church may not be the only way. Religion is but ONE path for spirituality and on the flip side it breed can chauvinism. The act of persuading another to spiritually think/act alike is as stupid as persuading another to like one’s favorite foods.