Are you stupid enough yet?

I am in a rare mood today. I am in the right state of inebriation where I do not care just enough to write stuff that I should not. So here I am ladies and gentlemen about to lay bare all that is wrong with the world. Topping the list is ideology. Men (or women) will give up everything that they hold dear but their ideas. There is a false sense of safety in subscribing to similar ideas which people like to call identity. I am a Hindu, I will not eat beef. I am a Muslim, I will not eat a pig. I am a Christian, and there is a day of reckoning and nationalities and professions and so on. We have become so engrossed in concepts that we have created in our heads that it has become almost impossible for us to think outside of them. These ideas at some point of time have become more important than us, they have become more important than now, and this is the biggest tragedy of the human race. Even our logic is defined by these ideas.

We have no clue where we came from. We have no idea what will happen to us. We are a small part of the earth's history and an even smaller part of the universe's history, yet we are conceited enough to believe that what we know and what we believe is the absolute truth. In fact these ideas that we have about our existence have been given so much importance that we are ready to die or kill for them. Our dependence on ideas previously thought by others is our biggest problem. This dependence on the thought process of a few leads to stupidity, the mass epidemic that the human race suffers from.

For example, the Delhi BRT. Lets borrow an idea from a foreign nation and put a bus stop in the middle of the road so that cars can run down passengers as they try and get from the middle of the road to the side of the road. We have been kidding ourselves for so long with our systems and rules which are all inherently flawed that we are blind to the potential of the human mind. For instance all this money business. Money creates more money which eventually leads to devaluation of existing money which keeps us forever in the chase of making more. It will never end because nothing will ever be enough because that is the basis of this system. We have convinced ourselves that there isn't enough for everyone and that someone has to get the short end of the stick. I digress, the trouble with alcohol is that the mind has issues holding on to a particular train of thought. I was on the topic of stupidity. This entire money thing invented by a few to control the lives of everyone else is very stupid. If you don't have enough money, you must die. Someone came up with that idea and we all followed suit. Need I say any more?

We live in a world where Paris Hilton has more money and fame than deserved for making a porn film and having absolutely no intellectual ability. We live in a world where millions do not have enough to eat, where people die for want of clean drinking water and yet what bothers us most is what someone said about some kind of ideology. We are indoctrinated by our education and our society. And it pains me, almost kills me, and is ruining my life in ways that I cannot get into now that people have absolutely no original thought. Nothing has been the same ever. What we consider to be common sense and accepted social behavior is very different from what it was a hundred years ago. Even our religions have changed, yet we attach so much importance to things that are bound to change. Even money has not been around forever. But no matter what it is we find our ways to be serious and righteous about stuff we are not sure about. I personally find our fickleness baffling. Tomorrow you will rely on someone else's thoughts and they are bound to be different. So try and think for yourselves and please spare me your stupidity.

An appeal for objectivity.

This is the last thing that I should be doing, when there are just days left for my graduation and I have shit loads of stuff to do. But I just could not resist. First of all, as a human being, I am appalled by what has happened in Mumbai. As an Indian, I am hurt, and as a reasonable person I am astounded by misdirected outrage and emotional tirade all over the media and the blogosphere. But first of all, the background. Check this out.



This is the video of some "Expert" on such affairs where he blames India for killing its own people, stopping its business capital for 2 days, thereby suffering loses of over INR 50000 Cr (estimate), so that they can defame Pakistan. This was necessary considering widespread international recognition of Pakistan's peace endeavors. Money quote, "unka chehra hindustani tha". I have no words to counter such an argument. This is fool proof, I wonder why nations even bother with passports. The video is full of such hilarious insinuations, which affect its credibility as a whole. It all sounds so stupid that you want to attack it in every possible way. And that is where I hit a snag. Leaving aside the hilarious quotes, I could not say with utmost conviction that this guy was totally wrong. I am not saying he is right, but I realized that there is no way for me to say that he is wrong because I do not have a credible source of information (and leaving aside his nationality from face recognition skills, I doubt he has any credible sources either, but I digress). And that realization led me to another. Does it matter who did it?

The objective was to make us hate each other. Check. The objective was to highlight our division (religion, countries) and our inability to cooperate. Check. It is sad to see that all of the Indian people are intent on hating Pakistan. And Pakistanis are intent on hating us for hating them. And this is an infinite loop. Whoever did it, has successfully reminded us that we are divided and that we shall remain so as long as we ask who did it instead of why did they. The choice between fear (of each other) and love (for each other) will define our future and it is easy to chose fear.

If you see this video on youtube, there is a slew of comments, all filled with hate, anger and abuses, totally and utterly devoid of any sense. That to me is more depressing than this video. We have lost our ability to be objective and without objectivity we will always be religious and/or nationalist fanatics. So make your choice, but do so carefully, because our futures are interlinked, and we are the same people, and no I cannot tell a Pakistani apart from an Indian by looking at his face and I think it is nonsensical to even suggest that.

Mention Not..

Having received another one of those rejection emails has put me in a pensive mood and instilled in me a desire to share my moroseness with the world. The thing with these rejection emails is that they are full of sarcasm and you are never quite sure which part of it to believe. Its like they are mocking you, right there in your own inbox and you cannot do shit about it. Here you are, trying to get over the disappointments of today/yesterday/this week/month (you get the point) by working, in the hope that something will go right and that there is some good in this world worth fighting for (sue me!). The last thing you want at this time is an email which says Thank You! as the subject. You see what I mean. Sarcasm. They are not hiring me, so they really cannot be thankful for the "valuable time I took to speak to their team members", and they really dont value my time otherwise they wont have taken a month to reply. These emails are an abomination, just the kind of jeering, prodding push you need to send you over the edge when you are already down. Quote : "we were impressed with your resume and will be in touch with you in the future if there are other opportunities that fit your background". Translation : "What the hell were you thinking applying to us. Please do not bother to apply again, we will contact you if the position for the Janitor opens up". The entire tone of the email is awfully upsetting and even though they use nothing but positive words, its hard to miss the leers. I mean that talk about background. You are a freaking software company, I am a freaking software engineer, what the hell do you want? A freaking nuclear scientist!!! Ofcourse they have to thank me again in the end for wasting their time. Well.. mention not!