Something that sometimes saddens and sometimes irks me is to see comments coming in saying things which make it obvious that the writer has either not read things I had written earlier, or not understood, or quite forgotten about them!
There is a search bar along the right-hand column of this blog, you know, just so that before dashing off a comment you can check out whether and what I had written on the subject already – just type in key words like education or religion or prices or Harry Potter or freedom or China or poems and see what is available. You might be pleasantly surprised to see that I have said a lot of things on all these subjects already: and you might find your queries answered, your doubts resolved. If you don’t like using the search bar, you may instead click on the various labels (‘personal’, ‘worldview’, ‘tributes’, ‘earliest posts’ etc). It will be a nice gesture to me, too, saving me the trouble of repeating things I have said (sometimes more than once-) before!
I have myself been going over some old posts lately, and there are now quite a lot of them, on a great variety of subjects. And since I don’t normally write about nine-day wonders, most of them are quite as relevant today as they were on the date of writing.
So I shall not write on anything ‘new’ for a while (what’s the big deal about newness anyway? An obsession with novelty is a sign of a weak mind that merely lives from sensation to sensation, retaining no memories and having no use for reflection … that’s not the kind of reader I wish to attract and keep). Instead, I shall wait expectantly for comments to come in on some really old posts. Like this one, for instance.
1 comment:
Sir,
I followed the link you provided in the last line of this post, which took me to "Are you sure", that you posted some 5 years ago. It really makes a serious reader ponder for a while. And whatever you've said in there makes sense and is a stated fact some way or the other. I shall just comment on some of the points that you've raised back then.
The status one achieves through money, fame, power, education doesn't guarantee any satisfaction or pleasure in real terms. So is the case with shopping. The pleasure that you derive from buying exorbitantly expensive gadgets is very short lived. In a day's time you would either lose interest in it, or something more expensive might catch your fancy and make your last acquisition seem ancient.
Following the common herd is another much-debated topic. I agree that most us tend to follow the herd. Of course, there are exceptions. I recently read about 4 IIM alumni, who gave up their plush jobs at UBS to come back to India to do organic farming. They say that is what interests them. There are many who would love to do/practice what they dream about, but economic compulsions and/or safety of their monthly salary prevent them from doing so. I know a guy in my workplace, a brilliant chap, can write efficient code even better than what the software architect envisioned. But he simply hates his job. He likes to do research and incidentally has an invitation from BARC to do exactly that, thanks to his very high GATE scores. But unfortunately, economic compulsions prevent him from doing so. The monthly EMI amount that he pays (thanks to a new house -- his ancestral property was in shambles and his parents were in constant risk of a cave-in) comes to around 41,000 and BARC's 15,000 per month stipend would by no means take care of that. Things are so different nowadays than say even 15 years ago. My father didn't think of building a house until after retirement. But nowadays people in their 20s are buying/building houses. Not that I blame the youngsters. With rents as high as 15,000 plus per month, it makes better sense to buy a house and pay EMIs instead of paying such high rents to some house owner. I really had no answers or arguments to counter his sense of resignation.
And the point regarding charity -- It’s said to work for your own good, more than others’ -- how true! If done without compulsion or as a mere show, there's nothing that gives you more pleasure than helping out someone in need. And religion -- it's a major contributor to the hatred among mankind that's so common nowadays. If only people would keep their religion and beliefs to themselves. Sir, I've covered only a few points out of the many that you've covered in your post. But I've gone through each of your points and wholeheartedly agree that all the points are designed to make one think.
Regards
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