For the naked spirit

How do I look at myself when I am most disillusioned? A person on a blue-green planet whose clock is ticking. I stand outside in the sun and picture myself from high above, someone else in his moment of calm. He just realized that time is passing but he doesn’t feel seasoned from inside. Only other inmates have left any impression on him, not the house itself. And it is the house that is most enigmatic, picturesque and eternal. He spends more time untangling the web, not being unmindful of it. If he only looks outside when others are sleeping, he will know how badly he needs to immerse himself in it. Only one of the few things that will amuse and enrich him both.

In the most recent copy of TIME, third generation of Psychologists suggest that it helps to watch your thoughts (esp. ones you don’t like) like leaves floating down a stream. They call this process of putting a little distance between you and your thoughts, “disidentification”. A revolutionary and not to mention a controversial idea. An earlier generation questions this therapy, probably because some people might be pushed to the edge as an observer while not doing something to fight them. But you are fighting them, by not letting them affect you even though they are your own thoughts. And then you also get the chance to look around and put things in perspective.

So many types of excitements and celebrations I have only got the chance to see and hear about but not to experience them. How does it feel to bungee jump or dive deep into see, para skydiving or being in samba carnival in Brazil? What attraction a European countryside holds? Tasting all the cuisines in the world, learning to appreciate different cultures and their music, trying to interpret what their century old wisdoms mean. Different faiths and their non-believers, suppliants and rebels. I want to sample them, all of them. And here I’m, trying to choose the path I think will make my parents and teachers proud, out of many served on a platter. And I judge people, not knowing it may be one of them who knows the meaning of life. It shows how close I’m to….myself, almost a slave of it. In Agantuk, Manmohan sought to refine his art studies, only to realize innate beauty in primitive cave paintings and in the process discovering that essence of humanity resided in the customs of ancient tribes. Do you know about Bode Miller? Alpine Skiing champion and Olympic gold medalist. He is having fun, while wining…and sometimes not finishing the race. He has taught himself how to enjoy the game and has risen above the result. Once he discovered how to modify his gear to take a faster turn and told the whole world this secret. His philosophy: he wants everyone to enjoy the game better, including his opponents and he would have seemed more concerned with winning had he not made the formula public. If you judge how successful Bode Miller has been, based on how many medals he won and how many races he finished, you will never know how fulfilling career he had.

I am born to experience, so is everyone else. Thousand different things that enthrall us and are all around us, some ever present, some travel with seasons. And all I notice, time and again, is this feeling of déjà vu….in one form or the other. Daily dose of commotion is not helping it either, making it sound like more important voice. I feel pissed at someone who I have never met or talked to, because I’m sick of hearing about him on TV all the time. Not his fault, certainly.

A vast canvass, where there is always a different form and interplay of colors to be discovered by a new admirer, is open before us. From our first attempts to nature’s sophistications. First, geometric shapes intrigued us, now shapelessness. Two definitions of abstract art, ours and everything else that has inspired it. But before I dive into it I must put little more alienness between me and what I perceive myself as. I won’t question or judge but just float. Ready to be manipulated as a guileless observer. And come back every-time with samples…untainted. For I believe, I won’t be busy amassing survival tips. It’s a truly wonderful world and I need to go places.

A higher state: being just human

Watching Fight Club was rude awakening. Don’t know how many of us really feel that our lives have become stagnant. A part of us wishing we weren’t what we really are. Our identity is everything of our personal collection but we, and we do nothing to wrest it back from “things”. Wearing this identity has taken its toll too. Human element is dissolved in the towering establishments of civilization. Emotions are standardized. You “ought” to do this if you are in pain, join a club if you need laughter therapy. Why Chloe’s last wish of getting laid one last time is inadmissible before group? Who decides what a dying person should ask for? Why should the wish be noble if death itself is so shameless as to come in such hideous forms? Spiritual enlightenment is the name of submission of will at every stage of life, a retreat into wilderness or the individual heroic that braves every adversity and burdens itself with the greater good of humanity? I can be human, only too human, and still be spiritually enlightened. If I am feeling empty, I need to start from scratch. Reacquaint myself with the most primitive emotions to escape this commodification. Discover what binds us together, not necessarily common needs. Tyler Durden proclaims we are the middle children of history. Our every invention is outside us and we are shrinking in stature. Things have evolved but we have regressed and this inferiority is apparent in us striving to create our identity with our wardrobe items. Can we challenge our ancestors in a hand to hand combat, stripped of all our gadgets? Can we survive in a jungle on our own as much as a person from middle ages did? Surrounded by creation, creator is losing that element that sets him apart from creation. Could this have been the inspiration of Asimov’s robot-taking-over-world-and-enslaving-man saga? While imparting more and more of intelligence, our only hope would be to beat the creation on our own turf. This is not to undermine the advancements we have made but what good is it if we feel depleted at the personal level? To what end it is driving us?

Spiritual redemption would not be complete without placing our human heroic above unsubstantiated divine connection. Why do we credit divinity with the conquests that were brought about by our effort? It hardly does any justice to our heroes and certainly no good to the generations of strivers. Do I sense Nietzsche’s Ubermensch (overman) here?

Instead of Christianity now, this stereotype corporate culture, that demands conformity, has thwarted the development of superior individuals. And a consumer mentality where our needs are made, not things we need, is not helping it either. Detestable means to a degenerate end. It has reduced us to less than human, leave alone anything superior. Nietzsche decried the modern notion of “progress” for the reason that there have been scattered and accidental existences of overman in the past. But this culture is stifling our growth, and is certainly not conducive to individual excellence.

In the course of history, there have been heroes that symbolize the higher level of individualism with no supplication to divinity and are worth emulating. Society that insists on conformity and impedes this development deserves to be sent in anarchy. After all, it is through these turbulent times, great personalities are born and not in a stagnant and prosaic ambience like this corporate culture. Probably Operation Mayhem is designed to galvanize people with the aim of anarchical crash of this culture. And an underground fight club in every city is a blunt but potent way to wake us up from slumber.

Pleasures that are convicted

Man’s greatest strength is his conviction. In the opening court-room scene of The Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufresne knows he can’t defend himself against the crime he never committed, he looks unusually resigned to the fate, no theatrics but a perplexed expression in anticipation of the things ahead. He is pronounced guilty and sent to the dreaded prison. But what the entire screenplay and a character of professional banker belies till the end is his conviction which never forsook him. This conviction stands out more because it wasn’t born out of his suffering in the prison over years but it entered with him in the prison in the first place and was hidden well beneath the veil of a character, tailored to invoke nothing but pity from the audience. Other felons felt frustrated and angry, yelled and fought but did nothing quite something like he did. He knew twenty years is long time but his conviction made him work day in and day out. During the movie, we sympathized with him but at the end I only had admiration for the guy, nothing else. Nietzsche said "A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions." So be it. Either way, he was so convinced of his innocence that he didn’t hesitate in attacking everybody else’s conviction, including the inmates who often use to joke that everybody there was innocent. What made him even more dangerous was a sharp analytical brain, bereft of any raw power that could channelize his frustration into wastefulness. Like a blind man who develops a knack for sensing smallest of movements through his sixth sense having been devoid of vision which is often so distracting. And who could have thought that Andy would screw the lives of Warden and Captain, who signified unchecked power, in one stroke.
Terrorist groups long realized that nothing can terrorize people more than a man of unswerving conviction, so staunch in his beliefs that he can make his life dispensable. There is hardly any strategy or shield against suicide bombing and no wonder it has become preferred weapon of terror. How will you defend yourself against somebody, however impoverished and weak, is bent upon blowing himself up for his convictions? And it hurts more if we perceive that our possessions are more valuable, made more so by the quality of life. The divide is getting wider and the fraction at a considerable disadvantage is using the biggest weapon at its disposal in this struggle.
But I hate it all the same. Life would be so cool without any convictions but we are so hopelessly emotional. Need strong feelings, beliefs and what not. Just imagine indulging in sensory pleasures at all times without any emotional baggage to go with. Driven by drive, not by a sense of obligation. Let it fade away if it must. We were never meant to be so opinionated but we have made ourselves miserable. Our nature is to seek pleasure at all times and the sensory pleasures, that decouple the senses from convictions, are most addictive ones. Lord Henry’s philosophy of unremitting pleasure seeking in The Picture Of Dorian Gray however poisonous are seductive. Dorian Gray does adopt this philosophy of hedonism with no regard for conventional morality but his end is brought about by his conscience that is finally appalled at the collective sum of his “crimes”. A crime such as, shallow love for Sibyl Vane that he must remain committed to. Mixing Lord Henry’s philosophy with a regard for established conventions is a dangerous thing and a vain youth has only himself to blame for his downfall. Only if he had pledged his conscience too, with his soul!

Pleasures are meant to be guiltless, only if seen though the lens of morality some of them look vile. And only if the morality was synonymous with usefulness in social order. But the problem is, it is not. Some of the moral codes, though not useful, can’t be jettisoned and they are the critical ones. A newly found source of pleasure must not put one of these moral notions to test because then convictions find a way to play a role and Lord Henry recedes in the background. I find it distasteful. It should be smooth and non-conflicting. Should be adopted almost undetected. Every aspect of pleasure should be unobtrusive, including acceptance. But it is the retrospection that is harmful, esp. for hedonists. Its one way alley, otherwise a life of repentance. To go down this road you must be convinced that you will not do a Dorian Gray, soul searching to discover that you find your lifetime of indulgence morally offensive. This can prove to be fatal.

The age of decadence

“What is the style of every literary decadence? That life no longer lives in the whole. The word becomes sovereign and leaps out of the sentence; the sentence reaches out and obscures the meaning of the page, the page gains life at the expense of the whole ….the whole is no longer a whole.”

-Nietzsche in The Case Of Wagner

The age of decadence is what I call the current crop of Bollywood movies. Heard that Abhishek Bachchan has finally come of age in “Dus” and went ahead with the plan, ignoring the prejudice I have against new age Hindi movies. From the headcount in the theater it didn’t appear it would be a hit but it would hardly have any impact on themes of future movies. This age of decadence was so obvious at so many different places. Four male actors dressed up in black and stepping out of four black cars wearing we-mean-business look for no apparent reason at more than one occasion (and I was thus wrongly led to believe that something big is going to happen) or a Suraj Barjatya style wedding, which has become a signature Indian wedding in movies, thrown in somewhere in first half or Shilpa shetty, as a cop, that can be so distracting for other team-members in any critical mission. Devdas when served with multi-crore set and a gushy mushy Shahrukh Khan made millions oversees. Muscle flexing heroes, bewitching actresses and a filthy rich upper middle class family where some members have some “issues” but nothing too serious - it all stands out but what is missing is the soul of the movie. Characters and their whims become larger than the movie itself.

My friends argue that movies are a way to escape from reality and they don’t want to see the ugly reality on the screen as well. Agreed, but do you stoop to any level to unwind yourself? Don’t confuse such movies with a Govinda movie. Latter is genuine fun for a definite group of people whom he tickles with some down-to-earth comedy. He doesn’t delude you; if you find his acting gross, don’t watch him. He is not a trend-setter for the general class of movies. Ram Gopal Verma looked promising in Satya but has been showing a different type of decadence of late. An overdose of surprise or Mumabi underworld, either of these two is his idea of breaking the mould. He does manage to break free from cliché cinema but the central idea doesn’t look anchored in the plot sometimes. He is a brave director though.

Traditionally movies are supposed to convey a social message and be an entertainer. Since all the popular social messages have already been conveyed, in countless movies time and again, over past fifty years and we too are not looking for them anymore, movies are understandably reduced to just entertainers. But looks like Bollywood has run out of ideas as well. The central idea a movie revolves around need not be a useful social message but can be just food for thought or at least a well recognized sentiment that runs throughout the movie. Ardh Satya neither vilifies a person nor imparts a message. It does present a problem, namely the vicious circle today’s society is caught in, but doesn’t offer a close end solution either. But it leaves you thinking long after the movie is over. Characters are firmly entrenched in the plot and seasoned actors bring them to life on screen so well. Or Sholay for that matter, a blockbuster but nothing looks out of place, characters do stand out and so do dialogues but not at the expense of movie itself. People don’t forget the movie Gabbar Singh or his dialogues belong to. The present day decadence has nothing to do with the genre of movies, art or commercial, but it is the trend that is disturbing. Art movies are spared from this degradation because the plot needs to be so potent and pervasive that it doesn’t leave any scope for character glorification alone. They have never been a crowd puller anyway. But the mainstream cinema has never been in a worse shape, not even when Mithun used to rule the roost!

But the question is what has brought about this decadence in cinema? An obvious argument is that cinema only caters to people’s demand since gone are the days when whimsical directors used to create cinema for their own satisfaction. Are we cinemagoers then responsible for this decline? The answer, as per me, is an unqualified yes. Perhaps it is recent wealth that burgeoning middle class has acquired that entices us to see an affluent setting in cinemas too or the growing Indian diaspora oversees that feels nostalgic at everything desi or it is a case of plain intellectual hollowness but somehow we have been sending wrong signals to the movie makers. They feel they can get away by serving us our figments of desires through a loosely connected plot and in the process have identified some pointers to a commercially hit cinema which most of us have been falling for again and again. Sounds like a case of emotional blackmail. For example, my mom would go for any movie that promises few lavish weddings and sas-bahu altercation in the aftermath (when she gets bored with weddings she would like to see some serious stuff!), subtler the feud the better and if this bickering is fueled by other female members of the family it is a definite plus. It’s a different matter that she gets to see all the drama on the TV itself, thanks to Ekta Kapoor. This mass victimization is attributed to our failure in growing up as a mature body of cinemagoers. Accepted that fans of serious cinema were always few but seemingly we, as a whole, have slipped to new low and movie-makers have no qualms in tapping into it. It’s high time we realize we are capable of appreciating and deserve something better. We do not demand a Naseeruddin shah or Om Puri style thought provoking theme on ills that have plagued today’s society but a decent storyline and presentation that don’t make mockery of our intelligence. A little twist here and there and enhanced visuals would be welcome. Contrary to the popular belief Nietzsche did have a philosophy under the layer of aphorisms that constituted his style of literary decadence, employed deliberately to transcend any mere "anarchy of atoms" but there is no such case in Hindi cinema today. Our movie makers are no Nietzsche.

Politics and Society

A number of bombs have gone off in London killing scores of people and the consequences in days to come are different for different sections of society. An entire community fears backlash, world’s second most populous country is hopeful that West will empathize with it this time and those who have been spared in West are speculating whether there homes are any safer. Don’t be fooled by worldwide (but not unanimous, since some skeptical leaders in Pakistan have termed it a plot of West and America to denigrate Islam) condemnation speeches that express solidarity against this fight against terrorism. Divide among us has never been wider and what is tragic is every time a crime is committed against innocent people, involved parties always look to gain some political mileage by justifying their actions by drawing upon them. Very soon the real tragedy is forgotten and what remains in the wake of it is plain politics. A classic example of modern times would be Bush deciding to invade Iraq in the aftermath of 9/11 on the pretext of breaking the “nexus” between Saddam and Osama and unearthing WMD. Everybody, at the outset, knew that the real reason is either to secure oil reserve for strategic purposes or establish a foothold in the Middle East or both. Thousands of innocent civilians have been killed in American bombing since then but nobody thinks, or at least articulates, that this is an act of terrorism on part of America and its allies. Countries that didn’t approve of it opted out but didn’t oppose the invasion. But that is understandable since everybody wants to do business with America and hence you better not play with its sentiments, more so because it is the superpower. Self-proclaimed model of righteousness and perpetrator of democracy. But the point remains that it is an act of terrorism by an imperial power in constant denial. And terrorism as the state machinery in the disguise of patriotism is a potent weapon otherwise how do you explain Bush winning the second term? Are the terrorists always to be identified as firebrand fundamentalist Islamic fanatics? Can they not be suave looking, English speaking leaders representing an entire nation? Does less media coverage of people getting killed in Iraq or elsewhere make them less of a victim? The question west needs to ask itself is, does it stand on a higher moral ground than those Islamic terrorists? Does a recognized society with its civilized people have the privilege of being absolved of its crimes? If, after all every action is aimed at furthering the interest of the concerned nation/group in the global arena then there is no question of ethics, just pragmatism. Judging from this perspective then this war on terror is nothing more than the battle of interests. No different from any other battle or even crusade. One example, India has been suffering from state sponsored terrorism (some people would call those militants freedom fighters) for past more than a decade, first Punjab and then Kashmir but West always turned a blind eye to it but this London bombing assumes so much significance because it is seen against the backdrop of 9/11, as an attack on West itself. And entire West feels vulnerable. Why double standard about a global phenomenon such as terrorism? The point is, the international politics is the one of sheer shrewdness and expediency, of cold calculations. There is no place for humanitarian and ethical consideration or perhaps there is some, as long as it doesn’t conflict with your own agenda.

This is a glimpse of a bigger tragedy called society itself. Society has a will of its own, has identified some self preservation measures and presents them in the garb of moral and immoral, ethical and unethical. Demands complete conformity to these norms at individual level but relaxes them, only to be replaced by something more sinister, if the challenge to its authority gets bigger. It goes to the extent of even ostracizing the weaker faction labeling it anti-social. It is not just the battle between West and Islam but two factions of the society and society itself has taken the side of more influential and powerful since in the long run it envisages a future with the progressive and “civilized” populace, not the backward ones. It is not to say that Islamic fundamentalists are not at fault, certainly they are their ways of carrying out their struggle are more qualified to be called terrorism. What makes their actions more horrific in public eye is that it doesn’t bear the stamp of authority of a nation such as US and are committed in a very brutal way, arousing our emotions and turning our opinion against them. Killing scores of people in Vietnam or Iraq doesn’t seem to capture the public attention but beheading a person by a group of masked Islamic fanatics gives us nightmares. The inherent question is not that which side is guilty since both are, more or less, but it doesn’t change the characteristic of a society. Once it has identified which side it should associate itself with, it gives that group the right to act with impunity, without fearing consequences, not even the moral ones. In a much smaller setting any aberration or deviation from socially accepted values is perceived as threat to the society itself and dealt with the instruments of first, conscience and then punishment but at this level, the usual rules don’t apply anymore since the stakes are high. Don’t let the ethics guide your decisions but take all the pre-emptive measures and retaliate without any qualms. For the greater good of society few atrocities will be forgiven. It’s the society that is running the show; calling the shots and one has the choice of being one of its agents, enforcing the rules or being a spectator.

स्वागत है तुम्हारा भी

आओ, हिचको मत।
यह अचरज विस्मय का चिन्ह है,
सुदृण कटुता नही, पुर्वाग्रह्जन्य है।
भय है, लौट आने का उन क्षणों का
जिनमे उन्मादित 'खुशी' ने हृदय को
सिर्फ अपनी जन्मभूमि माना था,
और तुमने उसे अपना सहोदर बताया था।
आओ शामिल हो जाओ अपने तत्वों के साथ
इसके विजयगान मे, जो कल तुम्हारे लिए होगा,
और आयाम दो वास्तविकता को मिलकर।
शायद उसे यह आभास हो रहा है
कि इस हृदयपटल पर तुम्हारा भी बराबर का हक है,
और उसकी महत्ता पहचान खो देगी
तुम्हारी अनुपस्थिती मे।
देखो उसके अधखुले अधरों मे शब्द दबे हैं,
'स्वागत है तुम्हारा भी'।

संवेदनहीनता

मैं, इस बिखरती जिंदगी का एकमात्र मूकगवाह
सशक्त लेकिन शापित, सूचित लेकिन दिग्भ्रमित।
बेमेल प्रतिस्पर्धा है ज़िन्दगी से मेरी,
तार तार होते सपनों को फिर से बुनने का कार्यभार
सौंपा गया है मुझ पर।
लेकिन इस पूर्वनिर्धारित हार की चिंता
अब व्यथित नही करती अन्तर्मन को।
स्पंदन नही बचा अब किसी तन्तु में।
सुखदायी है संवेदनहीन होना,
कि अब रोज़ रोज़ मरना नही पडता।

प्रतीक्षा

इस प्रतीक्षा मे कि मेरा मौन ही मुखरित होगा तुम्हारे सामने एक दिन,
मैं चुप रहा।
और तुम, अन्ततः तलाशते रहे मुझे शब्दों मे ही।

- तरुण 'निशांत'

Send a Message to God: He has gone too far this time

Came across this article through some other blogger's page. Interesting read.

By Heather Mac Donald

In the wake of the tsunami disaster, it's time for believers to take a more proactive role in world events. It's time to boycott God.

Centuries of uncritical worship have clearly produced a monster. God knows that he can sit passively by while human life is wantonly mowed down, and the next day, churches, synagogues, and mosques will be filled with believers thanking him for allowing the survivors to survive. The faithful will ask him to heal the wounded, while ignoring his failure to prevent the disaster in the first place. They will excuse his unwillingness to stave off destruction with alibis ("God wasn't there when the tsunami hit"—Suketu Mehta) and relativising ("for each victim tens of thousands yet live"—Russell Seitz), even if those excuses contradict God's other attributes, such as omnipresence or love for each individual life.

Where is God's incentive to behave? He gets credit for the good things and no blame for the bad. Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is fond of thanking God for keeping America safe since 9/11; Ashcroft never asks why, if God has fended off terrorist strikes since 9/11, he let the hijackers on the planes on the day itself. Was God caught off guard the first time around, like the U.S. government? But he is omniscient and omnipotent.

So slavishly do his worshipers flatter God that they give him credit for things he didn't even do. Let a man rape and murder a child, and it's the man's offense; but if someone tends to the sick or shares his wealth, it's God's hand at work. The Most Rev. Gabino Zavala from the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese rejects any suggestion that God forsook the tsunami victims, according to the Los Angeles Times, but he credits God with the subsequent charity: "You can see God in the people's response—how they're reaching out."

It is a sad fact of human relations that unqualified adulation often produces from the adored one contempt and a kick in the chops, rather than gratitude and kindness. Apparently, the same applies to human-divine relations.

So, let the human race play hard to get. Imagine God's discombobulation if, after the next mass slaughter of human life, the hymns of praise and incense do not rise up. He checks the Sunday census; the pews are empty. Week after week, the churches and mosques are unattended; the usual gratitude for his not wiping out even more innocent children does not pour forth.

He starts to worry. Has he gone too far this time? Maybe he should've exercised his much heralded powers of intervention, the same powers that his erstwhile worshipers presupposed every time they prayed for him to cure a cancer victim, or get them into law school.

And so, no longer guaranteed an adoring public, he starts to make nice. He calls back avalanches poised to wipe out whole villages; he brings rain to drought-stricken communities; he cures fatally handicapped babies in the womb, or prevents such flawed conceptions before they happen. He presents tokens of his love to malaria victims and children paralyzed by auto accidents. Africa blooms with peace and prosperity.

It might not work. But the "I'm rotten-You're divine" syndrome isn't too functional, either. It's worth a try; there is nothing to lose.

The Philosophy of Detachment

I am suddenly reminded of someone in my family who turned poet-cum-philosopher after his long cherished ambition didn’t get fulfilled. I think it was more like a dream for him since he had set his mind on it right after 10th exams and did what he thought best to materialize it but at the end even after getting tantalizingly close to it several times he couldn’t really grab on it. This took a heavy toll on him as it usually happens and he detached himself from everybody and everything. Like team Australia he had no plan B and really couldn’t figure out what alternate course his life should take. Many years passed and he gradually turned to Jeevan-Darshan (philosophy) and writing poetry (gloomy and reality-bites type, of course). It took 8-9 years before he could pull himself out of that failure-triggered-depression but at the end of it wisdom dawned upon him. I call it wisdom because it changed him completely and for the better. He longed for companionship and family attention again (not that we had forgotten him), applied for other “low-profile” jobs which he would have considered untouchable earlier. Got married and settled for a simple and happy life. Although he never opened up completely, I did understand his outlook of life had changed a lot. He had realized that no goal, no dream gets bigger than life itself. I wonder is this another way of saying that life is full of compromises? Setting a dream for oneself, working towards it but being aware at the same time that it still may come to nothing if fate decides otherwise. May be we should never lose focus of the fact that nothing really belongs to us. Detachment is what Bhagwat Geeta also preaches but getting the motivation to accomplish something without being attached to it or worrying about the outcome is kind of difficult, almost impossible. Buddha preferring middle path in the hindsight of what he saw coming out of his palace is just another way of looking at it. Moderation is not always a single practice but sometimes a mix of two approaches, passionate about putting in your best effort but dispassionate about what follows. And this kind of “applied” moderation is justified (and practicable) if life must be led for its own sake. Like some highest or final good, which Aristotle calls eudaimonia that is desired for its own sake and for which everything else is desired. I remember reading somewhere that you can’t understand the system from within the system or in other words, to see the pattern you shouldn’t be a part of it. So step back and look at it in its entirety. We are trying to figure out whether the dreams and goals are worth grieving over if they go unfulfilled. No amount of consolation can convince us unless we accept the futility of the whole process itself and subsequently detach ourselves. In that sense the philosophy of detachment is more like a practical tool aimed at making us impervious to chequered nature and ups and downs of life, to keep us going. But then if we are not part of the process, what drives us to start all over again after every failure? What really is the force that never lets us abandon everything even if adhere to this philosophy of detachment? I think it is instinct that rules supreme in all of us. It is above every logic, every rationality. Our instinct is still above the thought process that has taken thousand of years to evolve. No matter how I support or refute the meaning of life, I can’t say it is dispensable and it is owing to the instinct in me. The most basic of all probably is this instinct to keep oneself alive, assert oneself and this inspires us to take such indifferent look at anything beyond life itself. Of course there are things like ambition and dreams but they are no more than amusements, a whole lot of them, in every form and shape, day after day to ensure that we don’t die of boredom. But to confuse these amusements, which are meant to make our lives colorful, with life itself is to confuse means with end. Deeper I delve into it more I’m led to believe that this instinct of ours knows that too much excitement or depression can kill the life and therefore it has inspired this philosophy of detachment as a kind of self-preservation measure.

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us." E. M. Forster