Humans, Viruses and Hell

A dialog from Matrix:
Agent Smith : I'd like to share a...revelation I had, during my time here.It came to me when I tried to...classify your species. I realized that you're not ACTUALLY mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but... you humans DO NOT. You move to an area... AND you MULTIPLY... until every natural resource is CONSUMED. The only way you can survive is to.. spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Humans beings are a DISEASE, a CANCER of this planet...

If there is God, and if he created humans, I really wonder what he had in his mind while creating humans.
1: Killing the same species
2: Killing other species for fun
3: Not fitting anywhere in the food chain

These things lead me to a thought.. Hinduism believes that when you commit N number of good deeds in past/present life, u get to be a human.. For me, thats like a punishment for others.. its like saying if u commits sins, then in ur next life, u'll be surrounded by humans.. That means we are going to be like hell for others :) Is it why we worship God? Coz its natural human tendancy to look for something that we dont have.. or finding grass on the other side always greener. So since we already are in hell, or since we are hell.. we want something better :)

You will say I am thinking/saying is crap... but my point is, all of us on some different planet will make "this" world better :)

I am not exactly an antisocial/antihuman person, but I do feel that we use our so called intelligence in a very very incorrect/inappropriate way. Please dont flood the responses with "u do the same things.. why blame others" etc.. coz I am a human and bound to make mistakes :)

I am proud to be an Indian !(?)

hmm.. time for me to get more confused.. Lets start with the title. I, proud to be an Indian(?) how often do we use this term? If you are asked, are u proud to be an Indian? - what do u say? At least I say I am! why? lets c the dictionary meaning of the word "proud":
1. Feeling pleasurable satisfaction over an act, possession, quality, or relationship by which one measures one's stature or self-worth
2: Feeling or showing justifiable self-respect.

Why would I say I am proud to be an Indian or a Marathi or a Punekar - as I haven't done anything - no contributions towards any of the 3, to make me proud. But I will still say I am proud of it :) Shouldn't it be "lucky" or "fortunate" being an Indian?

Is hard-work a synonym of being Indian? I donno.. am quite lazy. Where do we stand in the entire world? What are we known for?
1: Second largest population (but one or just a few medals)
2: Software Giant (but nothing on our own - all we do is service to MNCs - sophasticated labour I would say..)
3: Clothing - Name a few companies which are at par with Levis / GAP / Tommy - some ppl wud say where do they get the cotton frm? India! I wud say - so what?? Do ppl buy Tommy or GAP as their cotton is frm India or do they sell on their brand name?
4: Kamasutra - where everyday more and more ppl are being found infected and sex is a BIG TABOO.
5: Secularism - Where caste and religion fights are common along with regional disputes.. I can go on..

Now ppl would say what I have done to improvise on these things on which I crib about so much? My answer - Nothing. I have no excuse either. I am just trying to be a good man, trying to make some change in few lives - hoping that wud contribute something towards my country.

Enuff of sounding non-patriotic - coz I do care for my country. I do have few answers with which I try to convince myself to be fortunate to be an Indian. I am fortunate to be borm in Indian family as I have learn values from them. I know how to respect - not just elderly, but everyone. I am aware that it was not my parents duty or obligation to raise me so that I can forget what they have done for me and just leave them alone to live their own life. I know the importance of "I" and "We" at the same time as this culture has taught me the self respect and independance, along with social ties and responsibilities. I do believe the morals we learn are much better than... nevermind.

So in the end.. I am still confused. It is more like a love-hate relationship. reminds me of a marathi saying - "Tuza maza jamena, tujhyavachoon karmena" :) All I can do is to accept the harsh reality and try to work on it, so the future generations wud have little less confusion :) Afterall, you can't get everything you want; the way u want :)

I know this writing has no proper end - no conclusion but I guess thats what blogging is about... otherwise I would have been a writer :) so.. adios amigos!

Vande Mataram!

Destiny or foretelling?

Do you think these words could go together? The more I think about it, the more confused I become :(

Some people do believe in Destiny. They believe something is going to happen, as it is their destiny. Some people do believe in predicting the future. They also believe in doing some things to change their predicted future.

If I say this thing is going to happen, as it is my destiny, then how can I rectify it by doing anything? If I can modify it by doing something, how could it be the destiny? If I am destined to do something, will I do it no matter how I act in the process of doing that thing?

Predicting future looks like if-else conditional statements to me (w.r.t. programming)If I do this, something will happen. Else something else will happen. And the nesting of such ifs and else continues… Who controls the path? If we chose the path, then its like saying we chose our destiny, which doesn’t make sense according to meaning of destiny. If WE don’t chose the path, and if we are forced to make a selection, then it doesn’t make sense with respect to acting according to steps recommended by predicting the future :)

So can't we predict destiny? We always comment about destiny once that incident is over. Something like - this happened as it was destined to happen. That means we don't know about our destiny in advance and we don't predict destiny. So while predicting, we predict our future - which may or may not become true. We treat destiny as a bunch of things. Bunch of end nodes of the paths taken. When 1 of the node is reached, we label it as our destiny.

But sometimes I do feel like believing in destiny as 1 fixed node. 1 start point and 1 fixed end point – no matter which path you select. I was destined, not to be with my ex-gf. No matter how I behaved, I was going to end up breaking up with her. At one stage, I knew the future - that she is going to leave. I tried harder, but the things didn't work out - as they were destined to be. One of my friends got married - looking at my breakup. As he didn't want to lose his gf. Now, within 9 months of their married life, they got divorced. What is this if it is not destiny?

Rationality?

Read a post titled “God vs God” at one of my friend’s blog. It was something about god being in a position of Dr Jackal and Mr. Hyde my 2 words about similar thing.

When we say the word "God", I guess we r expecting some image, or some thing, which is all-powerful, which doesn’t make mistakes and which may guide us when we are unable to take decisions. We give that image different names according to our beliefs and religions. So in that case, how much valid it becomes to say that it has its own weakness? Like in Mr. Hyde. I am thoroughly confused with these issues for last so many years, so am not making an assertion, but just putting my thoughts about it.

The subject line reminds me of the way people are using it now days. My god vs your god :) I don’t follow my religion the way I am supposed to, and I have no enough knowledge also, but I know that much that no religion will (or at least shouldn’t) say I am better than yours. For me, religion should be something that guides you to do right things and act well, than to follow something blindly which was written or told thousands of years ago. Now “right things” and “well” are so vague terms and people always try to manipulate them according to their convenience.

I believe that whatever was written, was written by humans and not by God. God may have suggested few things, but as humans wrote the text, it was according to the social conventions at that age. Are they still valid? Shall we still follow it just as it is written that way? I don’t think so. Take an example of the movie “Lagaan”. The British fellow (I forgot his name) asks the king (Kulbhooshan Kharbanda) to eat meat if he wants the British to cancel the tax. The King refuses to do so as it was against his religion. Lets put aside the fact that ultimately the tax gets canceled. If at that stage, the only option was to eat meat to cancel tax and probably save hundreds or people’s lives, will it be valid / ethical / logical thing to not to eat meat? What one should do if the choice he/she has is:
1: Go against the religion and probably save lives
2: Stick to the religion and ignore the fact that it might affect others.
I guess I don’t need to answer it. Also, enough of it at this moment. I have other things to do too. Maybe I’ll add few things later as they come in my mind.

Homophobia?

In advance, sorry for the probable typos and strange abbreviations...

Read a door-post on 1of the Prof's cabin.. It displayed a picture of a gay Vietnam war veteran's grave. it said..

"They gave me a medal for killing 10 men... and... discharge for loveing one."

I myself am a homophobic. Well.. not exactly a homo"phobic" but I can't digest the concept of homosexuality ... but these lines were too touching for me. Before coming to US, this wasn't even a concern. We hardly used to talk about it in India. But things are different over here. You see lotsa homosexual people around. Sometimes u can make out the difference, sometime you can't. Used to work with a very nice guy. Used to get along nicely with a colleague. After few months I came to know that they r not str8. Was kinda shocked but that made me think why we (most Indians) are homophobic? Just as we r not used to it? They are friendly people just like other str8 guys. Str8 ppl do turn them off - so no need to worry abt that either. Just need to change our attitude towards them I guess!

This is what one half of my mind says.. the other 1 just can't understand the concept or reasoning behind being a homosexual person. My general knowledge is not very good, but I don't know any other species having homosexuality in them. Maybe there are exceptions, but I guess they will be exceptions and not in so much of amount! Whatever.. suddenely my enthou of writing about this topic is gone. so better stop here.

Sorry if I have hurt any 1s feelings! peace!