Tuesday, January 09, 2007

.....Because I CHOOSE to!

Of all the realities of life, I think I came across the most compelling one; in the most unassuming way……

A few months back, the stage was set, when Deepak came up with the idea of watching MATRIX REVOLUTIONS. Just another Hollywood flick, from the look of it…..rarest of its kind if comprehended. This is not about how great the movie was, but how great a message it conveyed. At the onset I understood head-nor-tail of it (lots of action and expenditure; typical Hollywood), but it had something in it that made me choose to watch the movie again.

A second look at the movie made me choose to watch THE MATRIX, which made me choose to watch MATRIX RELOADED. And here I am after I chose to write about this verity. The essence of matrix lies in a single line spoken by its protagonist NEO……… The backdrop is in wreckage (like the picture of earth, just before its extinction or origination), the moment is like an epoch when the opposites (I won’t say good and bad) collide and lead to annihilation of the difference between them. AGENT SMITH asks (not exactly like this) “why do you want to fight a lost battle….you know you can’t win…. Can’t you see? Is it for love…… or friendship or freedom or faith…. or for your people, who do not even value your existence?” WHY WHY WHY? The answer to this answered all the “WHY’S” of my life and probably human existence.

The reply came from a man who himself was in search of the same answer, a man who was enlightened at that very instance, a man who knew the extent of his own power and also his enemy’s prowess. He said “BECAUSE I CHOOSE TO”.

The world today is as it is because one of us at different instances of time wanted it to be like this. It was because one of us wanted to light up our lives that we have a bulb glowing in our drawing rooms, because somebody wanted to fly, we see these heavy metal bodies cutting across the sky. Because somebody wanted to rule the world, we had to suffer World War II, because someone thought non violence is the greatest weapon, we had to overthrow tyranny with its torture. Because somebody wanted to reason falling of an apple, physics was born. Because somebody somewhere chose to make a choice for himself and backed it up with a great amount of conviction; human race had to simply follow the path lit by them.

No disregard to any of those who followed the path, because they chose to follow the ones ahead of them. So the reason of all the human achievements and sufferings is a simple six letter word CHOICE. We live our life, the way it is because we chose it to be ours. There is no supernatural or extraterrestrial reason that controls the course of our life. We have the power to make a choice and we have all the requisites to fulfill our choice. But we mostly choose otherwise.

You see corruption everywhere because you choose to be a part of it whenever it benefits you. You feel the quality of education is abysmal because you choose to let the level of your knowledge be decided by the system. You feel the nation is under-developed because you choose to see it like this (and fly away at the first chance life offers you to). You face dejection and rejection because you choose to let your mind believe in such vagaries. You fail to achieve your goals because you choose to accept a small tryst as your destination. The world is as you see it because you choose to visualize it like this.

The question is not about right or wrong but about who decides it to be either ways. It is you. It is every human being who consumes the oxygen available on this earth to breath, who consumes the food resources to fulfill his appetite, who enables his mind to believe in whatever it does by a mere CHOICE. The reason and consequence of your existence, the way it is, is YOU. That’s the ultimate truth of life. There is nothing and nobody in control of your life other than you. That’s the power of you, that’s the power of your choice.

You chose to read all of this. Now you may choose to believe it and accept it or simply discard it. In either case you will have made a choice and I am sure you have the power to make your choice worthwhile.

Friday, January 05, 2007

To Think or not to Think

This post is kind of a continuation to shamanth's 'about blank' post. Shamanth, I must say u r a true initiator man.Anyways thanks for initiating that post on thinking.

So here goes my view on it

Its a very rosy thought- not to think anything. To be on the lighter side I totally agree with Aneesha that some or the other time most of us may have used the phrase that 'my mind went blank' during the first few minutes of an exam. Wasnt that the time we dreaded the most, or was it the time we enjoyed the most. Dreaded not because u were afraid of failing, but very honestly because u realised that there is something u are not able to do, coz u found urself incompetent, kind of a fear that u experience just after a bad accident, whether ur shoulder which is paining so much is really going to work, or u have lost it.(speaking out of 2 brutal experiences)

Frankly speaking i fear those times the most when i found myself unable to think. Its just that mental paralysis which cannot be shown to anyone, it cannot be cured with someones help. It's just within u, u have to fight it. Have been some moments in my life, very brief but very scary.

I would go a bit further in stating some(actually many) lines from Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED, which very precisely answer the question"to think or not to think". Here i would like to state a small disclaimer that i am not quoting these lines with reference to any of the comments or posts on Shamanth's blog, but just a very outright and kind of outrageous way of stating the subtle topic Shamanth started on his blog

Thinking is a man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all evils, is that nameless act of blanking out, the willfull suspension of ones consciousness, the refusal to think-not blindness, but the refusal to see, not ignorance-but the refusal to know. Its is an act of unfocussing your mind and inducing an inner fog to escape the responsibility of your judgment.


Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him , its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To think is an act of choice. The function of your stomach , lungs or heart is automatic, that of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of ur life, you are free to think or to evade the effort.But u are not free to escape from ur nature, from the fact that reason is ur means of survival, so that for u who are human beings the Q is not "to be or not to be", rather it is "to think or not to think"


Too much philosophy to start with, but I hope I don't get any hate mails for this. Coz even if i get, i "choose" not to "think" about them.