Confidence as a privilege

Confidence is the bridge from talent and hardwork to success. People with confidence can many a times very easily get away with a lot of shortcomings. I am not to say whether it is unfair, that talented people are left behind just because they are lacking in confidence. This is a reality of life and this world and there is no sense in debating whether the significance accorded to confidence is justified or not. Now, what brings this confidence and what is a reasonable / moral source for it? Money, beauty, fame among other materialistic things are some things confidence follows very commonly. It is very easy to be confident if you are rich, powerful, beautiful, famous. The people who are not any of these - the populace, are obviously and perhaps justifiably annoyed. They do not have the luxury (confidence is surely a luxury as it makes things in life easy) that they see others enjoying - that sounds a lot like jealousy. Then again who ever said that the world is fair, it is quite obvious to be compassionate to the cause of the poorer / weaker side - but then, the other side is not really one with any malice.

So I would say the practice is wrong but it does not mean that those benefitting from it need to be made a scapegoat. Now for example being a person of beauty does make you the centre of attention and you feel a sense of power through this. This in turn makes you confident to face the world. But the fact remains that within that person is a regular person who has dreams, aspirations, talent and fears. The problem is that they walk through their life focusing on other things and let their fears be sidelined. So they are not as mature to face challenges that are thrown their way. This in no way means that they are not deserving. They are just as deserving as anyone else. And the fact that they have had that help so far and had chances plentiful should in fact make it easier for them to do anything without needing to rely on their beauty. It is alas a bit too easy, in this case, to be oblivious to other things.

The more important thing is that everyone should be confident of his/her abilities. No matter what other gift have been bestowed upon them. If confidence is a chain reaction that eventually leads you to achieve something, it does not actually matter if the start of the reaction was from something fake as long as there is enough substance in you to keep the reaction going forever. The idea is not to think where the confidence comes from, any source is a good source, the bad thing is over-reliance on it. It is always better to have something, but having the ability to survive without it is important. Once you get there, there is no harm in enjoying all luxuries that come your way.

Cosmopolitan

First of all who is a cosmopolitan. A cosmopolitan is basically a being who is not tied down by stereotyping, he is not the expected - more tangibly not tied to a particular regionalist behavior/characteristics/beliefs. I call myself a cosmopolitan and am proud for some reason that it is mostly true.

Now the second thing is why is being cosmopolitan good and what does it encompass. Well I think being cosmopolitan means being self-thinking, you don't let the predefined notions make up your thoughts - it's about being more independent. This makes it just more difficult to stereotype you. Stereotyping is akin to wearing blinkers (things that horses are made to wear to let them see only straight). You don't get to know the person, you take it as given that an Indian guy is a geek, an Afro is useless, an Arab is dangerous, a Jew is a penny pincher, a Brit is a snob or whatever notions you came across in your past experiences. It is hard to not have any notions about people based on their background. So basically by not being evidently a Brit, a Jew or an Arab you do not let people make pre determined notions about you - you start with a clean slate. I am obviously always seen as an Indian and can't possibly do anything about it - that's evident from my physical appearance. But yeah my provincial, religious and all other background need not be paraded in front of everyone and I take care that they are not. It does not mean I am ashamed of what I am, I just don't want that to be a factor that people judge me on.

People who spit their religion on your face have always annoyed me, so do (after a limit) people who parade their regional descent. Still it doesn't make them these people any lesser of a being, just that they are sometimes a little unrefined at the very worst and obviously think with a different perspective.

As always there are things that people fuck up at and which make the whole group appear in the wrong. For example people with certain ethnic backgrounds tend to stick together (which is good) but at the same time close that group and all others (which is rather cheap/mean). Being a cosmopolitan you basically end up not making the whole group associated with you (racially, religiously etc) to be associated with your actions. So are cosmopolitans ultra beings? Not really - a tad more mature than others possibly; but otherwise nothing more, nothing less.

Finding Love

Why is finding love so hard? Companionship is something that money or other materialistic things can get you. Partners are not as easy to find but still circumstances are an incentive for people to become partners and partnership can be attained by everyone. Love on the other hand is not bound by any compulsions and needs and cannot be easy to find. Perhaps that's the reason most people never find love.

No two people are absolutely the same, they can be alike to certain extend but never the same. It is not as if love can only be among two people that are the same. Luckily love, like a chemical reaction, can happen between any kind of a match or mismatch. It is a magical formula that no one knows and probably thats for the best. But there way too many problems that stop love from blossoming. First of all our behaviour is not uniform. People have different facets; and different people, that we know, get to see different facades of our personality. So it is not just something in you two but also a lot is left to chance. After that comes the perspective - you can be nice to someone, care about them and do all you can but possibly the other one might not see it for what it means or even worse see it in a negative way. The there are various social issues which I club together and call practicality - there are so many things that happen in our lives that make us unable to do what we want, then there are social differences too that stop us. I won't elaborate, but obviously there are various issues here.

As a joke I devised a 7 layer mechanism on what stops us from finding a partner. It doesn't exactly apply to love but in some way it might. First you should be geographically co-located, then you should also chance to meet. Third is that you are looking for someone at that time. Fourth is the your hypothetical partner is looking for someone at that same time. Fifth is that you like someone (which is not very easy for some people). Sixth is of course that your hypothetical partner likes you. Seventh and last is that mystical luck factor - for every factor that I forgot/overlooked/can't express.

Anyways that's enough digression - the point is that there are enough obstacles in your way to finding love and you should not be adding any more. Your disposition and your ego are things you have control over and they should not be allowed to before another set of walls to your soul's search for the elusive soul mate.

Book Review - Fountainhead Part I

Fountainhead is probably the most amazingly life and perception changing book there is, at least amongst the ones I have chanced to come across/read. There is so much of exquisite work that my review just never could do justice to it but perhaps I should try. Fountainhead seeks to (with clear success) shatter an inherent thinking that we all have - that no sacrifice is too high for the greater good of mankind. It is very hard to explain but when you read it you realize that perhaps what we had taken for granted for as true isn't quite so right. It shows how every man is selfish and rightfully so. There is no shame in bring selfish - infact the selfless devotion to ones desire is the most pious deed. The notions that we are taught as we grow in this society are not the final word - every man has the right to pursue his happiness and that for Roark in Fountainhead was his work. The desire - be whatever it might be - the ultimate crux of the matter is that there is no principle which is greater than the pursuit of your desire. You are in no way indebted to the society and sacrificing yourself to pay it is hence senseless. The biggest debt you owe is to yourself and to pursue your desire is the only way to repay it. Howard Roark was a talent par exemplar and it is rare to find such people and they when allowed a free hand can unknowingly give to the society that they never took anything from. The fact that these very folks are often sidelined and not even given the recognition that the most undeserving amongst us recieves is sad. There are numerous true stories of geniuses rebuked by the society - well the rebuke is not cared about mostly. But even worse is that it impedes their selfless efforts which will never take anything but give to others.

..to be continued

Desire

An austere sage teaches us that desire is the root cause of all evil. But to not to desire is to not to live and we are not interested in dead/suicidal people anyways. The problem needs to have a more granular solution. The problem is not in desiring but in desiring without limits. Man by instinct is such a greedy animal that it desires not one but a host of things in every domain. It's thinking is not simple as that of a animal. Animal just wants freedom, limitless freedom and to be well fed - a forest has everything it wants to live. Man on the other hand is a confused about this, he wants freedom but wants also wants chains that allow him comforts that they provide. There is this whole well-known debate on whether moderization/development is actually helping man but that would be digressing from the theme. So the limitless greed is what we think is the root for all evil. Take for example a popular business family and you will find people with billions of dollars each fighting over - of all stupid things - money. Now that might make some sense if they were poor and lacking in that area. But all they ever want is more, which as I see it is insane. Desire for anything to any amount is not bad till it takes over you. Till it takes control of the way you see, interpret thing and makes you do things you wouldn't want to do were it not for that greed (bad things obviously). It is basically the evil twin of determination. One leads you to achieving your goals in life and the other does the same but at the cost of your principles and morals. Greed and desire are divided by a thin line and the idea is to try and keep to the good side as much as we possibly can.

Under the yoke of mediocrity

Some part of all of us wants to be excellent, the best rather. Determination and hard work can help achieve a lot but still there are never millions of places at the top - only a few. There is a fight for those few places. But sadly the law of numbers prevails and numbers matter more than being the best. The multitude is, as expected, most aptly described as mediocre. This notion of democracy has been extended to mean that even this mediocrity of talent (in whatever field) is a desirable thing. Whatever this large proportion of the audience interested in, is sure to find lots of people fighting to get in providing. Thus we have a lot of mediocre products - be it movies, art, music, food, clothes, educated professionals or anything else for that matter. It is as simple as the business adapting as per the market requirements. Thus we see that a lot of mediocre stuff being pushed in - of these inferior things getting precedence over the better ones. People who actually have an eye for the excellent, the best of them are left out in the cold. Let take a practical example - say there is an exam on some logical subject. This is something where you should have people think over new/original problems - but the exam ends up testing attendance in class instead of logical reasoning, it has all the questions that have been 'taught' earlier. This is done to accommodate the majority of people incapable of coping with an intellectual test. In this way people who mug up achieve higher than people who actually think logically and have an understanding of the course material. This is the way that medicrity of the entire society stifles the better ones.

The reign of mediocrity was beautifully portrayed in Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. It remains one of the best pieces of literary work till date. There is a Howard Roark (the protagonist, defender of excellence in himself) in many of us, just the fact that most don't take up the battle of excellence and mediocrity - for it needs you to risk everything in your life at times. Thus the being who is a bearer of some form of excellence - under the slavery of practicality is forced to hide his talent and live intermingled and tinged with the poisoned of compelled mediocrity. And thus mediocrity begets more mediocrity and even stops the mushrooming of excellence.

But where do we see hope - there is always supposed to be some hope! Well in this case the only hope is going to come from individualistic strength to challenge the promotion of sub-standard things in any walk of our lives.

Why IQ tests are not to be taken seriously

Intelligent Quotient or IQ tests are ingrained in our society to a large extent. Though our society is not a meritocracy but we like to fake it anyhow and give the impression that merit alone is the factor for all appointments. SAT, GRE, CAT, IITJEE are some 'aptitute' tests which millions of people give every year and the toppers are certified to be among the best brains of our time. Given the track record of these over the years, it is hard to say that these tests have failed to bring out the intelligent people from the regular ones. But the problem is that they are not as accurate as their importance necessitates. First of all making a test though theoritically makes sense but as in any real world implementation there are too many assumptions that need to be taken. Things like native language, age, opportunities etc are some of the factors that matter, so that the people with the same score and differing on these factors may have different intellectual capabilities. Another fallous assumption is thinking of the human as a machine. No human has a 'technical specification' or a specific 'mental capacity'. The human brain is more of a moody equipment, an artist you may say. It may or may not fire at a particular time. So the test scores do not seek to reflect the capability of the mental equipment a person has but the capacity at which it was working that particular day. All in all, the IQ test (or apitude test as it is often disguised today) is more of a rough filter and the ranks don't mean as such as they are made out to. For example people with say 90%ile - 99%ile on CAT or say 2000-5000 ranks IITJEE are very likely to be of similar capability and making this as the only basis for selecting the one at a higher ranking is not the best policy.

Theism v/s Satanism (v/s Atheism v/s agnostics) ?

We learn progressively. If my parents had their way I would have heard of only theism. But I learned atheism, liked it and converted to it as a youngster. Then eventually I came to know of agnosticism and realized that this was more agreeable to what I believed in. I recently came to know of another theory, the theory of Satanism. This is enshrined in 'The Satan's Bible'. The name has a devilish tinge to it and that is what attracts the rebelious amongst us, my interest though was solely academic. Now Satanism is not the worship of devil as the word may sound like to most. It is basically the non existence of inhibitions, restrains that bind you. It talks to freeing the man enslaved by the various conditions of being good put on the behavior of people by the church (satanism for some reason chooses to take a stand mostly to the Christian church). Basically it is the recognition of everyone to seek his fulfillment and to enjoy everything he or she possibly can on this earth without being judged by some moral judge, that no man's salvation should be dependent on his self-denial. They do however respect the fact that such fulfillment should not harm anyone. To me this sounds fair enough. I didn't find the motivation to complete the book as it goes on a somewhat unintelligent attack on the church at times. Reviews though speak of the principals in depth and that made me realize that Satanism is a credible alternate to Theism. I do not think that Satanism is in any way opposed to Agnosticism or Atheism, in fact many Satanists might belong to one of these categories. Satanism didn't seem wrong in it's teaching but didn't really appeal to me either.
My basic point is everyone should be given a choice before being told to follow something or the other. The de-facto way of following your birth religion is not something which helps in the spiritual uplift of a soul !

The seed of religion was something good, the fruit is something else

A religious man is perceived as one who follows the edicts of his religion and in doing so does good. What, may we ask, is the reason for being good, is it not the promise of Valhalla, Paradise or Jannat. Now why is that - the founder of the religion did not mean to entice his followers into following his ideas, and doing what 'He' defines as good, with the lure of an after life of richness and pleasure. The excuse for this is (though not explicitly expressed) the fact that you need some abstractions to capture the mind of the beginner, the somewhat superficial thinking populace. We as children were taught things (even wrong ones) in our primary school for the simple reason that the young/'weak' mind cannot take any learning in it's entirety. For the same reason we have such false notions such as of paradise introduced to take the pupil in the general right direction albeit with a false goal. They were invented to be, I believe, deviations to falsehoods to ultimately reach the truth. The paradise promise is just an example, there are surely many other such deviations from the truth. Perceiving it a different light you can see that running a religion or being its guardian is supposed to be somewhat of an academic profession. But the only problem is that the leader is not physically present and 'His' representatives are not truthful and strong enough to steer in the right direction. So what was supposed to be a deviation has become a more permanent destination for the meek and impressionable followers. This is a thought I read somewhere and I need to quote this -
"The gods of the past have become as their own devils in order to live. Feebly, their ministers play the devil’s game to fill their tabernacles and pay the mortgages on their temples. Alas, too long have they studied “righteousness,” and poor and incompetent devils they make."
Like all things the failure of religion is nothing but a great idea being crushed under the massive forces of reality, a entity of the utopian world developing cracks in when brought to this real world.

The Power of Indifference

Humans as a rule have a natural tendency to comment and criticise on every topic, whether it is beyond their domain of expertise, interest or anything. We comment on stuff which we often know is dumb, that is why we would not venture saying most of them aloud. How do you defend/justify commenting on the accent, dressing sense or what not of a guy who is unknown to you, not interacting with you and thus not affecting you adversely in any way! What gain do we get out of it, nothing beyond a sense of satisfaction. True not all do it regularly but it is a very common tendency and we all do it to some extent. Ya but lets look on the other side. Look towards an alternate way - the power of indifference, if I may call it. Indifference to matters that we know not enough about and which in no ways affect us. The matter which we should really not care about. We do have a responsibility in principal to not turn a blind eye to anything wrong. But with a practical perception there are many things which we would do better leave as they are, in the hands of equally able people who aren't actually helped by our meddling.