Paradoxical dualities…

In the unfathomably vast physical universe around us, mankind finds the play of science and reason abounding sans constraint. Looking up into the stars on a cold evening has transgressed from being a simple glance of spirited wonderment to a symbolic gaze of hope and redemption, for we who think are we who live and the universe, our home at least if not for the non-existence of another of its kind, was, is and will continue to be the one inexorable source of every question and answer.

Civilization, a great cycle with an infinitely long radius that governs the minds and stomachs of the billions under its titanic umbrella, did not begin on a presupposed morning amongst a group of men, women and children. It began in the mind, as did every revolution, as did every scourge, a seedling of an idea, a miniscule ray of hope beamed at a different future, for the good or for the bad, driven in purpose to assuage the pain of the heart, driven in will to alleviate the pain of the soul.

Rene Descartes (31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650)

In the continued employment and belief of one man in these beginnings, and therefore his peers, and therefore his kingdom, lay hidden in the shadows of the infinite pores of curiosity and rebellion the embryos of innovation, discovery and understanding. This universe, the cosmos, may perhaps not have been existent at all for the now-supposed 15 billion years. For, all that is visible, audible and perceptible around is and is only because I can see, hear and perceive them through the translucent veils of my mind. Another mind, another omniscient force at play other than my own, does exist only when my mind itself does. Therefore, you exist because I do, and I do because my mind does, and my mind does because I think it does. In conclusion, I think and, therefore, I am (“Cogito ergo sum”, Rene Descartes). Thus, in my mind the womb, in those embryos of innovation, discovery and understanding, the scientific method that is the very proof of the existence of the triumvirate is questioned; essentially, a young thinker will tell you, it is a paradox. I conclude, “The universe is only as old as I am. When I was but an idea in the mind of Mother Nature, the universe itself was but an idea in my mind.”

And the scientist will lunge, provoked like the majestic eagle when the security of its nest is threatened, his penetrating stare seeming to bore burning holes through the walls of space and time, his mind racing to argue, to oppose and prove, to contradict and disprove. And he does, for is he not the child of science himself, gaunt and proud, sober and mystique, unwavering in his beliefs and willing to expand the confines of that which he construes scientific? And he spake! “The winds that blow, the leaves that dance – how would you know the cause, understand the effect, and learn, ultimately, your lesson were it not for the knowledge of the mobility of air, the physics of a frail leaf, and ultimately, the mechanics of the eye that beholds the wonder and the mind that remembers it?” We have studied the universe, together with the entities of space and time that contain it, through the lens of science, that sorceress. Her spells let us stray afar seldom; she is an empress even. Her kingdom is mighty and beautiful, with power in the hands of those who deserve it, and naught can they hold on to, they who desire too much for it. It is, therefore, a just empire. There is but right and wrong, and she abhors uncertainty. To the curious, to the inquisitive, to the young, her laws appeal straight to the heart. For, do you think they will not? Between that chance conception, between that singular ignition that gave birth to everything this universe houses, and that mathematical aberration that preceded its occurrence, that localized blackness which we must all collapse into one day, all that is is a product of science. “Would you, then, say science is not an absolute methodology itself but a “chance” conception of the mind – minds that will soon cease to exist?”

But whatever you chose, remember to look to your own efforts to make this world a better place to live in before looking up at a god.

Frail fodder

Early in the morning, I switch on the TV to find CNN-IBN’s sports section diverting all its attention on Baichung Bhutia, India’s football icon/idol, having missed an exhibition match in favour of attending a celebrity dance show which he also happened to win. I wondered why such a prolific news channel was spending hours together trying to get every scrap of worthless information on the screen – information that somehow concerned Bhutia’s personal life as well. I was also surprised to see a live interview running simultaneously, with the host firing question after question at the poor footballer as to why he decided to take some time off for himself in the middle of a season that didn’t have more than a few league games in the offing.

Dhoni on Times Now

The same thing happened last week when India lost their quarter-finals berth in the ICC T20 World Cup being held in England. Of course, being defenders of the title from the tournament’s debut in 2008, the expectations from the team was high. However, to many, a loss was expected somewhere down the line because the IPL T20 league games had only just finished and many, if not all, of the team players were under considerable stress and fatigue. Once India lost the crucial game to England, both Times Now and CNN-IBN became rife with questions of whether Dhoni (the captain) should be replaced, and how the Indian team was slipping, and how this was wrong and how that was wrong. There are two aberrations I see here. The first is that I’m 100% sure that if we’d won the game with England, Dhoni would have entered his “Poster Boy of India” Phase II and the media persons would have jumped around carrying his image on their heads. And secondly, having spent valuable hours scrounging for information that will (inevitably) soon be forgotten, I’m only led to believe these news channels will popularise anything to make money.

(And before I leave you, there’s another small thing I’d like to bring to light. I, rather we all, learnt that there was a women’s T20 World Cup going on. This came to light only when the men’s tourney showed no signs of progress. Is it that these news channels go solely after the money? Or is it that these news channels are allowed to assume what the viewer wants or does not want to see?)

What people need to know

I just realised the people of this world – at least those who spend a considerable time of their days online – always want to know of, hear and see only specific things. During a specific time of the day, it has to be good news, during another part of the day, it has to be bad news so they can sit down and plan out how to tackle it, and during the rest of the day, they believe they should be allowed to just ramble on – while some hope in their heart of hearts that someone is listening or perhaps, better, waiting to pay them. This is a big world we’re in. Up to yesterday, history existed. Today, history is dead. Our lives are saturated with the present, the now, to an extent that lingering on to the ease of yesterday will only serve to slowly drag us into the plunges of mediocrity and, worse yet, the subconscious desire we begin to harbour for it just so it becomes easier for us to survive. We have to begin to learn, and instill in ourselves, that a fight is all it takes, and only a fight will give us what we need. Survival is out of the question; if there is anything that we have learnt in 4,000 years, it is the art of survival. Anybody with a beating heart and two or more limbs can survivce. It is the living that should concern us. How are we going to going to see the light of a happy day, a day when we will no longer be waiting for a pay check to register at the bank, or a day when we will no longer be anxious about the rise and fall of economies? How we are going to be independent of that is what will make the ultimate difference, and this difference in itself will not stand to be our success or our failure. It will only be the door to another opportunity which does not have us looking back.

 

Stuck in yesterday?

Can you give another person what he or she needs to know to make such a thing happen for himself or herself? Do you think you have the information necessary to enable you to have deserved the money you are hoping you will be paid? People need to know all kinds of things. They need to know everything from how to live their own lives to how to get a rat family out of their garage. All of us are born with an equal number of opportunities lingering in the air, but the situations which we are brought up through will only enable us to reach for a few of them. All the other chances will be made available to someone else, and there is nothing you can about that. What you will have, others won’t, and what others will have, you won’t. If you are ready to understand these differences, you will survive. If you can make use of these differences, you will live. People no longer need to wait to be heard. There is the internet, there is the radio, there is the television, there is the telephone. There are newspapers, and there are people. What you tell your friends will eventually jump from ear to ear and reach a thousand people, in the form of an opinion, a judgment or in action. Eventually, ideas will spread. You will never be alone even if you want to be, and if you are, you will be noticed. The world can no longer tolerate silence. Someone or the other will always rue the day he or she let an opportunity slip by unnoticed. Even if you deliberately tried to restore the opportunity to the person due it, you can not. It is not that people are bad, or it is not that civilisation has only served to deteriorate human minds. It’s just who we are. Accept it.

 

Sometimes, we wish we could just flip the buttons on an imaginary remote, have everything problematic disappear into thin air, just so we could spend an evening in the comfort of our homes with a cold beer for our throats and some Sylvester Stallone-ian action for our eyes. We feel the weight of our years hang down on our shoulders, and the work of the spent day cloud our thoughts and desires. We wish to be in a free world, a world that didn’t worry about money or cars, that didn’t worry about how much noise the neighbours were making or the price of the new car they had just purchased, that didn’t worry about how much weight the people around them had lost or the predictable crash of the stock markets. We wish to be in a world that only worried about boob jobs and the Oscars, about the bottomless bottles of beer and the toothbrush flavours we dreamt of. You should know that such a world does exist, and it is not beyond our grasp. In fact, I can tell you where it does, too: in your head. You can come to live that life when you are ready to pay the price the people around you have set for it, and only when you can pay it without regrets. We are part of a larger world that will continue to exist even though we may choose to deny it, staying encumbered within the four walls that comfort us oh so much. I say why not build those four walls around the world itself? As much as all of this is so materialistic, one will have to accept it because it is the truth which ever way you think of it. It is inescapable, undeniable, even incorrigible at times. But for that matter, don’t give up. You will belong somewhere. 

Escapism & Knowledge: One At A Time

I had a nice little talk with a senior here in college. We call him Sawant, and I think he’d like for you to call him that too. Anyway, Sawant was a welcome change for me as far as conversational purposes go. We were talking about each others views on life and what could be done about it, until we finally hit upon two frames of though: pseudo-intellectualism and escapism. We decided that each one of us would come up with our own sets of ideas concerning the two notions. While Sawant is a man of many words, I’m a man of pen and paper. He will read what I have to write, I will listen to what he has to say!

First of all, I had to clarify for myself how I felt about escapism and knowledge, one at a time. I’ll put up a separate post on pseudo-intellectualism after this.

Notes

1. Institutionalisation
2. Varied perceptions
3. Acceptance
4. State
5. Society
6. Change

Escapism

I believe that the structure of the world around us today, be it in its religion, politics, science or philosophy, is erected upon the factors I’ve listed above. Institutionalisation recapitulates a fear of change, acceptance defies the basis of varied perspectivism, and the state and society play with each other to deliver a fairly acceptable social system devised on assumptions and history, a fable but agreed upon. For anyone, you, me, him, her, fitting in cosily amongst such chaotic scenery is a laborous task. The various strata that have to be mined through while simultaneously fashioning hopefully sensible opinions and judgments to gauge the nature of the people around you alone will take up a sizable chunk of your time; all this while you chalk out a superficial make-up to plaster on your face and choose willingly to assume the personality of someone else in a moment of self-loathing and on a whim of just thinking that these are matters to be bypassed in favour of convenience as well as a strongly denied sensation of escapism: our society is a maze.

Every time someone says “life is too short for all this”, I am only prompted to think. Obvious principles of argumentation has us all know that a true and infallible argument is that which is absolute in its standing and fundamental in its logic: it must be that a statement doesn’t exist which can negate the facts quoted in the infallible argument. Saying ‘life is too short fo all this’ is not absolute. If one were to take up the chronological aspects of living, all we have for our consideration are the inhabitants of the planet we ourselves live in: animals, birds. If one were to narrow the comparisons down to sensible footings, we only have the people around us to compare with. In this frame of thought, ‘life is too short’ is a statement without meaning. What are we gauging it against? Against the lifespan of others around us, people with the same biological composition as you and me. If you have 100 years to live and also think that life is too short, are you trying to say others around you try to live longer? And that is just but the chronological aspect of it! The state of which they are citizens, the society of which they are social units, the world of whose theatrics they are spectators – we are part of a similar society, a parallel state and the same wide world.

However, while stating all this, I do not enforce upon others that they take to the logical factors just as favourably as I do. All I am trying to establish is that although it is taken for granted that ‘life is too short’ is a convenient option to bypass those moments that have you making tougher decisions, it is also escapism because it is logically faulted through the inherent convenience itself.

I know. I’m just a silly, old fool.

Knowledge

Whenever I have been confronted with the need to ponder upon knowledge, the first thing that comes to my mind is its elemental standing. If you were to question me here, I will confess that ‘elemental standing’ is a term I have coined to imbue the element in question with the duty to declare its purposes with reference to mankind in general. The world we have built for ourselves is a world of extreme dynamicity and deeply rooted materialism. In such a basket, it is hard for anyone to stop for a moment and think as to why it is all the way it is. The innate ability to open a mind’s eye in the darker corners of our brain and perceive things differently has given birth to civilisation – a mensurable parallel to its biological counterpart of evolution. And today, it is too late to rewind through 4,000 years of civilisation and try to pin down the one thing that started it all. However, that is obvious: the quest for knowledge. The very purpose of evolving eyes is to see, ears to hear, skin to feel. Blame it on panspermia, divinity or luck, here we are.

For a civilisation spree sparked off by the want to know more by the second, it is only natural that what we have with us today is a scenario that is stable only as long as there are knowledgeable people to handle it. Now, knowledge, as it were, is a summation of all that we know, but just because such a thing exists doesn’t mean it is a necessity; those people who are devoid of the thirst to know more aren’t invalids. They are a hindrance, yes, but not an anomaly. Knowledge, by its existence, only confirms that it can exist, and the purpose we have assumed for ourselves – that of to know more – has nothing to with it. This is a very important point: knowledge and thought are different. When we think that we need to civilise along the same lines as our ancestors, we reach out to the pool of knowledge and partake from it. When civilisation is no longer a serious concern, as in when we are at the top of a graph that dictates sensibilities, knowledge separates itself from the pool of humanity per se.

(Imagine I am mixing up a bit of coffee. The mug being a metaphor of the absolute container, the coffee powder is humanity and water, knowledge. When the person holding the mug – in effect, the goal we have set for ourselves, the definitive plot of civilisation that we chart out – wants to have some coffee, water is poured into the mug and mixed. Coffee consists of the separate ingredients of powder and water, but it is coffee only when they are together. Similarly, the need to civilise consists of the perpetrators of the actions (mankind) and the knowledge that facilitates it. When they separate, it may or may not be civilisation as it originally was or was needed to have been.)

Blessed Death Psychedelium

Most of my posts concern themselves with how perception varies from person to person, and how understanding (of anything and everything around us) is innately tied up as a Gordian knot with it. It takes an Alexander to cut through it, and that is what constitutes self realisation. Anyway, today, I was pondering on death. All my previous contentions were as to how the experience of living seems to be the same even though its perception is varied. On stumbling upon the concept of death, I understood the meaning of the inevitability it carried around dignifiedly. Even though what we make of everything that comes between birth and death is different, the beginning and the end remain the same for everyone. They cannot be changed nor altered, and remain perpetually unasked for; a part of the package, if you will.

Suppose that there is a table. On that table are two objects, for example two wooden cubes – one painted blue and one painted red. If the table were to represent reality, and the cubes represent birth and death, you are now witness to the way I take to these phenomena. In one of my previous posts, I had described about the concept of Maya and Brahman in Hinduism. Maya is the universal illusion, whereas Brahman is the Universal Truth. Truth and realism are one and the same – although their perception is not. Truth is an absolute concept. If person A says person B is not speaking the truth, then it may or may not be an assumption on A’s part that B is not speaking what constitutes A’s realism. In other words, A sees something in one way, and the bone of contention happens to be that B does not see things in the same way. If the ability to conceive varied perception was unavailable, then realism will cease to exist. Only the Universal Truth will be present and understandable. 

However, the untruth and illusion are not the same. The untruth is the negation of the truth. On the other hand, illusion is the perceived truth – or realism as we see it. Therefore, under our perusal, we have:

1. Truth
2. Illusion
3. Untruth

Birth is truth. Death is truth. Realism is illusion. The children of Maya are not necessarily illusions. The can of deodorant in front of my eyes is illusion. The fragrance it emits is true. The lava lamp above the shelf is illusion. The light it emits is true.

That being established, I now come to the concept of the soul. The soul, as it were, is true if one wants it to be. I want it to be. Why? Going by my argument:

• Core argument 1: There is only One Absolute Truth.
• Core argument 2: There can only be one True perception of it.
• Parallel argument 1: we are all part of the same Universe.
• Parallel argument 2: we all concur to the same Truth because of CA2 and PA1.
• Parallel argument 3: Sight (or visual perception) of the body that contains the soul is varied.
• Core argument 3: One perception of the Truth recapitulates that the body outside the soul is illusory.
• Parallel argument 4: I think therefore I am; the illusion I perceive as being around me is so because I think that it exists. In other words, the illusion exists only because I do. If I were not here to be able to perceive it, then the illusion itself does not exist anymore.
• Core argument 4: An element other than the body constitutes the Truth.

The soul is a hypotheses drawn from these conclusions – like in a physics laboratory, a graviton is hypothesised and simultaneously believed to be existent just so particle physics agrees with its Newtonian counterpart. So, getting back to the topic at hand, I believe the soul to be existent. As a side note, I would like to stress the independency of the soul as such from religion and religious beliefs. Pondering on one’s existential truths need not have anything to do with God or any of His minions. Yes, I am a religious and God-fearing man, but that only means my Absolute Truth takes the form of a Supreme Being. To some, it may be moral values. To some others, it may be power. It can be anything. But everything that has nothing to do with the form of the Truth doesn’t have to be religious.

To be sitting on the floor of a 80 sq. ft. bedroom and contentedly typing away on a Razer (Arctosa!) keyboard is my realism. And thus is born life: as each one of us takes to Maya and Brahman in a unique way, we come across perceptions and experiences. Just as my senses bring to life the illusions of Maya, my experiences tell me that I am walking on the road that is life. Just as my experiences tell me that changes are happening and that I am finally blessed with the ability to track them, my death will tell me that my soul will break free from the container that is the body. Some people take to these things warily, and I don’t blame them. If we had been born such animals with the inability to look downwards at our paws, then mathematics would have been a distorted and bizarre dream. We are because we think. What we think of is up to ourselves. I believe in there being a Universal Truth. To a person to whom such a thing is absurd, his realism and his truths and untruths will lie elsewhere. The beauty of it all is that such things as the Truth and the Untruth will always exist in one form or the other. Our realism, as a last word, exists because of perception but, more so, in the self-assertion that whatever is perceived is real.    

LOTR Quiz

While out for some sheesha with a couple of friends, I dared them to ask me any question from LOTR – the book as well as the movie – and challenged them that for every question that I got wrong, I would pay them Dhs. 10 (with, of course, the understanding that they knew the answers too). Except for one question which had to do with a bit of the movie’s trivia, I got all answers right, even to the extent of correcting the questions themselves. The other two gave up on it and decided to go online in order to stump me. To their dismay, the net showed up nothing close to tough questions – except of for one quiz which had to do with the years in which things happened. So here it is, my own LOTR, Hobbit and Silmarillion quiz – and I’m going to make it as tough as I can! 

Enjoy!

Questions I

1. While camping for the first time after Rivendell, Saruman sends a band of flying crows as spies to the Fellowship’s camp to find out their plans. What are these crows called and where are they from?
2. How does the Orc army at Pelennor Fields better know the Hammer of the Underworld?
3. What is the House of Aragorn called after he is declared King at Minas Tirith?
4. The Mouth of Sauron, who is seen in the last book (an the movie) is sent as an emissary of Sauron to meet the Last Alliance at Morgul Vale. In the book, what does Tolkien say is his ultimate intention?
5. Name the only three of the Istari mentioned in the book.
6. Name the City of Trees where Galadriel and Lord Celeborn reside.
7. When the Fellowship is touring Lothlorien, what do they see for the first time from atop Cerin Amroth?
8. Before it was calle ‘Lothlorien’, what was the city’s original name?
9. Before symbiotically pairing up with Sauron to guard the pass of Cirith Ungol, whom did Shelob serve?
10. Who captains the ship at the Grey Havens, which ferries elves from Middle Earth to Valinor?

Answers I

1. Crebain from Dunland
2. Grond (or, the Wolf’s Head)
3. Telcontar
4. To obtain the keys of Isengard
5. Saruman, Gandalf and Radagast
6. Caras Galadhon
7. Dol Guldur
8. Laurelindorenan
9. Morgoth Bauglir
10. Cirdan

Questions II

1. Name Arwen’s two elder brothers, who are not mentioned in the movie.
2. Who prophesized that the Witch King of Angmar wouldn’t die at the hands of a man?
3. Gwaihir is the Lord of the Eagles. Who is his lieutenant?
4. Feanor crafted the Silmarils, which trapped for eternity the light of which two trees?
5. In the Mines of Moria, Gimli finds the tomb of Balin son of Fundin in which room?
6. Gandalf falls down fighting against a Balrog of Morgoth over the bridge of ______. Fill in the blank.
7. Who slew the first dragon, Glaurung, that was born from the desires of Morgoth Bauglir?
8. Ancalagon the Black was slain by which forefather of Elrond?
9. While Elrond chose immortality, which brother of his became one of the Men of Middle Earth?
10. Name the island where Sauron was imprisoned before he returned to set up fort in Mordor.

Answers II

1. Elladan and Elrohir
2. Glorfindel
3. Landroval
4. Laurelin and Telperion
5. Chamber of Mazarbul (or, the Chamber of Records)
6. Khazad Dum
7. Turin
8. Earendil the Mariner
9. Elros
10. Numenor

Questions III

1. In the first instalment of the movie, when the four hobbits are camping at night with Strider keeping watch, Frodo asks Strider who the woman is whom he is singing of. Who is the woman and who is her lover?
2. Galadriel possesses the Ring of Adamant. What is it called in the Elvish tongue? 
3. Who possesses the Ring of Water?
4. Which is the first month of the Shire calendar?
5. At the Council of Elrond, Gandalf vetoes the idea that the Ring be given to ___ _____. When asked why, he says ___ _____ will never understand the importance of the Ring, and it will lie with him, unable to tempt him, and eventually, when the Nazgul come to his doorstep, he will perhaps hand the Ring over to them. Fill in the blank.
6. Name the only two Ents mentioned by name in the book.
7. Morgoth, in his hatred of the Elves of Valinor, bred which race of cannibalistic warriors as a mockery?
8. Who is described in ‘The Silmarillion’ as the Supreme Being who created the Universe?
9. To which breed of horses does Shadowfax, Gandalf’s prized steed, belong?
10. Amongst the plunder of the trolls, Thorin Oakenshield and Gandalf find two famed swords. Gandalf takes for himself the one named Glamdring; which one does Thorin claim?

Answers III

1. Luthien, Beren
2. Nenya
3. Galadriel
4. Afteryule
5. Tom Bombadil
6. Treebeard and Quickbeam
7. Orcs
8. Eru Iluvatar
9. Mearas
10. Orcrist

Questions IV

1. Who takes up the Stewardship of Gondor after Denethor?
2. Name Theoden’s father.
3. Aragorn is also known in the Westron tongue as ‘Dunedain’. What does it mean?
4. Connect the following: Amon Amarth and Sammath Naur.
5. Who is the Numenorean king who first set foot upon Valinor, causing Numenor to be drawn into the oceans?
6. Name the mountains where the Army of the Dead reside.
7. Whom do Elladan and Elrohir rescue from a band of Orcs – a feat mentioned specifically in Rivendell by Arwen when asked about her family?
8. What is the Elvish name of Rivendell?
9. Name Legolas’ father.
10. Name Aragorn’s grandfather.

Answers IV

1. Faramir
2. Thengel
3. Man of the West
4. ‘Amon Amarth’ means ‘mountain of fate’, which is a reference to Mount Doom. ‘Sammath Naur’ means ‘cracks of doom’, a chasm located deep beneath Mount Doom.
5. Ar Pharazon
6. Dunharrow
7. Their mother.
8. Imladris
9. Thranduil
10. Arador

* * *

Well, that’s about it. I’ll put up more soon.

Cheers!

Where The Darkness Lies

They say too much knowledge can drive a man to insanity. The Universe, in all its being, refuses thus to unmask itself. Even as through every moment of his short day, he tries to fire rockets into unbeknownst corners of the darkness, they never return with all that he wanted to know about. Maybe we were not supposed to know everything; otherwise, we should have evolved (or be created by Him) with two more eyes at the back of our head. The darkness will always be somewhere. So much said for the persistence of darkness, I am glad that it does, in fact, persist. There are two sides to this coin: knowing the darkness persists, and accepting that the darkness persists. Knowledge is not acceptance, as is obvious. I accept that the darkness persists. I want the darkness to persist even! There are moments when the darkness draws me to the unknown, it asks me to explore, it asks me to be inspired. I’d rather be inspired by an element that inadvertantly inspires rather than be someone who does so knowingly. There is a mystery to such affection, it leaves so many avenues open in life. I decided recently that I wanted to be a writer, but I knew I didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of anyone. I wanted to begin from what was in my mind, and I wanted to write about how I saw the darkness. You see, it needn’t always be construed as ignorance. Ignorance, again, has two sides to itself: that which you knowingly ignore, and that which you unknowingly ignore, which is no longer ignorance itself but a vanity of sorts. It is vanity because it is your fear of failure that keeps you from accepting such things. And unknowingly ignoring something is not plausible since one wouldn’t know he is ignoring something in the first place. Amazing that ignorance itself transforms into something intangible when it comes to perceptions of the human mind.

But that is not the darkness I love as much as the darkness around me, palpable in its limiting haunt. Darkness is not good, they say. I like it. When seeing is believing, darkness blankets sight. However, to the trained mind, it does not snap belief. It only reminds you that whatever you need is right in front of you, and even though you may or may not believe in what lies farther away, it is out of the question because that is not where you belong at the moment. This is the darkness of the beginning – it reminds you of your roots. Darkness keeps you to yourself. In a clouded room such as mine, few want to enter because it doesn’t beckon. But if you were to ask me, the darkness is a personality. It does not necessarily depict the stereotypical evil, nor does it portray voluntarily chosen ignorance. My darkness is my home because, every moment, it reminds me of me when I am drowning in my narcissistic excesses, it reminds me of the world waiting outside my door when the dense and black uniformity begins to inspire and asks me to explore, it reminds me of someone up above when I doubt the darkness itself and see it spreading infinitely beyond my eyes, it reminds me of the beauty of truth when its acceptance is as inevitable. Darkness is uniform. The paganistic individual that I am, I take nature’s metaphors seriously. I believe that the darkness in our minds is what calls the night upon us. The daylight and the sun have exposed all our vanities for all to see, and now is the time you have to ponder them, now is the time that you defy ignorance but not breed it.

It is a wonder as to why the darkness and black have come to typically represent the evil in us. Our mental darkness, the darkness in the mind, comes only with the fear of failure. The willingness to explore everything, everything, will defeat it. And exploring everything does not necessarily deign you as being evil in the heart. Curiosity is built into our blood, and it is the only emotion, as it were, that has contributed meaningfully to our civilisation as well as evolution. I am such a person. I believe in the absolute nature of everything, i.e. everyone is the same in heart and soul – it is the mind that makes the difference. If you think of it this way, all babies are born babies, and not Peter Kurtens or Barrack Obamas. It is our understanding of the struggles in the world, and our reasons for our victories, that make us what we are. Again, the way we take to our victories also makes a difference: a victory is a victory only if it is your field of play. In a 400-metre race, you are not lauded if you run the first 100 metres under 9 seconds. We enter the arena as equals. How we leave it is in our own hands. We must learn to accept this fact, nay, we must know it! Accepting our defeats for what they are – only but the wrong turn, accepting the darkness for what it is – only but the unknown and nothing more, makes a difference. And this why I like the darkness: it makes all this so clear to me. Just a black screen in front of you. In other words, the difference lies in what you learn from it. If you think you don’t belong there, you may turn away sans guilt. If you think it is an invitiation to explore the unknown, just part it by the side. Believe me, it’s a whole new world.

The Loss Of Meaning: This Chancy, Chancy, Chancy World!

Just like the many organs of the human body enable us to feel, see, hear and speak, the languages we write in, the stories we weave out of them, are given life when we use meanings and symbols to let them feel, see, hear and touch. Not everything is just words. In fact, there are a very few things that are just words – probably definitions of other words.

When you read something, when your eye passes over a sentence, when your brain understands what is being said in what context, you immediately form an image in your mind. That is when little words of four or five letters quiver with the possibility of an infinite interpretations. It is not mandatory, nor is it impossible, that a word, phrase or a sentence be interpreted in just one way. If so, everything would be so rigid, as if creativity had been subjugated to the death of imagination – as if creativity itself had ceased to exist. It would mean the eradication of signs, symbols, explorations, adventures, possibilities, myths, legends, mysteries, the eradication of fascination and wonderment! We are humans, and as humans, we are always curious. As much as we dig deep into the earth and fire rockets into the sky, it would be a sad day when we know everything there is to know. Purpose would be lost, meaning would be lost. Men and women will drop whatever they are doing: what is the necessity, after all? What happens at the end? What happens after I nail the painting into the wall? I will only be looking at it; I will not be able to into it. As much as we need to know, we don’t want to know everything. That is, indeed, a dreadful end to the quest for knowledge: the truth that you now belong in an old world, where you conquered every mystery there was left to conquer. You are king now, but a king of old men sitting by their sickles in the fields, but a king of old women who see no children in their bleak futures, but of children who fear growth itself.

And so, we have creativity, we have imagination, we have wrongs, we have mistakes. Only by weaning out a contrast between two apparently similar objects do we identify and define difference itself, and only with the emergence of a difference do we recognise progress. Change is the unit of time, time is the herald of change. If we hadn’t been able to detect change itself in the first place, time would be a futile requirement. The clock face would be a redundancy: you don’t see a changeless reality reflect the ballet of the three hands. That is why we see mistakes as the stepping stones to success – only, the proverb forgot to tell you mistakes are the the only way to success. The need for imperfection has never been so profound.

So there, I have established that meanings and interpretation are integral to civilisation.
But even in the presence of meanings, it is always up to us to interpret it right. Availability: excellent. Validity: eternal. Truth: can’t say. We have variance in variety. We have millions and millions of words floating around us in the form of speech and image, and it is up to us to understand them in such a way that the interpretation reflects our purpose in the need to understand it. Man does not simply look at the bark of a tree and launch into a list of the metaphors it brings to his mind. He will have his prejudices, his experiences that have fostered them; he will have his reasons, his dreams that have inculcated them; he will have his perceptions, his company that has required it. He will conform to something that finds logic in his beliefs. He will not so easily go against himself. If there are holes, he will plug them. He will construe in the beginning when it seems right and normal, and then he will construct in the end to make it seem so. The imperfection of the self recapitulates imperfection in the world. We cannot, at the same moment, account for all the factors affecting our decisions. We will have assumptions, some ignorances, in coming to our conclusion. Rigidity prohibits probability. If something is to stay so independent of the passage of time, it must either be extremely vulnerable to the subversive forces of nature – in which case it will soon die – or it must be unresponsive.

Take up this micro-scenario. You are reading a story wherein the author has failed to mention the time of day he is referring to. Suddenly, you come across a paragraph which seems to help you in piecing together different pieces of information to conclude that it is night time in the tale. Also, suppose that the words ‘darkness’, ‘loneliness’, ‘blind’, etc., are not mentioned anywhere. Even so, the conclusion only seems logical as to be night. That is the power of symbols: the author can choose to deliberately exclude straightforward adjectives of a phenomenon. Instead, he can choose to employ the imaginative power of the reader to build his or her own physical appearance of the scene and the characters. A good example would be Milan Kundera‘s works, which concentrated more on the mental make-up of the persons.

The need to interpret, rather than to take for granted, is only recognised by itself when exposition is limited. If the author takes time to expose everything about the scene to the reader, the reader will find it hard to from those mental images from which he or construes the message waiting to be conveyed. As much as the author’s imagination is exploding with newer and newer concoctions, he must limit himself to what is really necessary.

• If quoting fact A suffices that fact B follows, then fact B is redundant if printed.
• If fact A may or may not imply fact B, then fact C can be mentioned to corroborate that it is, fact B that is being spoken about.
• If fact A and fact B are both mentioned, fact C can be left up to the reader’s imagination.

But each meaning must exist independently – it can not depend on the other meanings. If a word is interpreted in one way, then the implications must be unchanging. The study of semiotics, for example, sometimes deals with the interchangeability of symbols, and how two symbols at the same time can yield one meaning. However, two meanings cannot lead the interpreter to the same symbol.

Anyway, I have narrowed down the plausibility of probabilities to the constraining of exposition. But, even then, there is a personal remaining to be made: whether to interpret, or not to interpret. This is a very foggy subject for me. In trying to quantify perception and understanding through the definition of cognition and recognising, I now find myself limited by an anticipation. Something tells me I am on virgin territory, fresh land, something new and unexplored! Where do meanings themselves stem from? When we know we have to interpret a riddle in order to understand its implication, why do we take for granted that there will be mystery waiting to be uncloaked? How do words give birth to ideas? Simply put, even if I were to be an expert on a matter, why do I inherently know that there will always be something unknown to me lurking in the corners of it?

If that was my black cloud, this is my silver lining: the thought does not shatter belief. It evokes curiosity and fosters self-inspiration.

The Very Thick And Conspicuous Line

For the last few weeks, we, me and my friends, have been having these arguments as to the effectiveness of today’s education curriculum in supplanting the student’s success later in life when the subject matter can find applicability. At college, we have a variety of lectures and topics, which aren’t the bones of contention, but the way they test us. We have two tests, a closed book test and an open book test. Pro: In the CBT, we have a fair assortment of conceptual questions and factual questions. Con: all formulae have to be memorised, however old and out of date. Pro: OBTs are high scoring. Con: In the OBT, the volume of application-oriented question is close to zero, delivering a data-sheet flavour to the answer paper. Most of them are formula-based, making it a mug-fest rather than a probably enjoyably, otherwise wholly educative experience. Take up the example of, say, a structural engineer, a person responsible for the structural aspects of a construction project. He will have with him a calculator, of course, and a data sheet apart from the whole world around him to ask for help and the internet if the worse comes to the worst. Now, you may argue that assuming such a rigid approach to inculcating the student with important applicable knowledge makes him easily adapt and evolve into the engineer who does not seek help from outside but is capable of solving any problem on his own. This was an appreciable approach back in the school days when the diversification of the student’s mind, as it were, was not as widespread as it is now in his college days. When you turn 18 [:P] and when you move into a college, your lifestyle changes, and your mind vigorously takes to it. Similarly, Your education is also now modified to suit your future. In school, the curriculum was tailored to cater to your fundamental educational requirements. In college, the curriculum has to be tailored to cater to the applicability of the subject matter at hand.

If, example, I were to write an exam wherein the data sheet and the calculator were made available to me, and I had three hours from collecting a 100-mark paper to giving it in, with the internet also at my disposal, I would just have hit upon another opportunity to expand my knowledge of the subject than just the knowledge of the subject. That line between learning and understanding has to be drawn more clearly, and only then can students draw their own hopefully clear line between identifying and applying.