For what we really are!

[This is probably the second blog post of mine this year. First of all, i would like you to know that this long span of time i have been off this blog has been spent by me in many different phases. Happy, Sad, Broke, Hopeless, Romantic, Angry, Helpless, Sleepy et cetra to name only a few of the adjectives. I have been on an errand where i kept searching for meaning in life. Sounds philosophical? Yes, yes i know that tone. By meaning, i strictly refer to my career goals and future with my girlfriend (Now that you know i have one, congratulate me on this occasion). Today is dated 08/05/15, not a very special day but just another normal one where i go off to sleep at 2 am and wake up confused at ten. But yes, today i couldn't sleep and i am thankful to my sleeping habits for not letting me sleep. I have craved to get up at dawn but that craving hasn't been fulfilled in a long time.
This is the follow up you might need about me and my life.....Oh yes, a follow up to a short paragraph that i intend on writing. Shouldn't be very impressive but might be soothing.]

Under the grey skies awaiting the clouds to clear up so that the sun can shine bright, i walked down the empty lane with an expression on my face that i couldn't recognise. I suppose it was of bliss, and it should be so; given that kind of an atmosphere around me. I hadn't slept and i felt unfresh a few minutes back. A cold shower, water dripping down from the hairline, flowing through the shoulders, crippling your senses for a moment or two, was all i had taken and walked hurriedly out of the house (more like a room). Yellow and dark green leaves scattered under the trees that shook subtly in the chilly wind that was blowing. Oh that feeling! Oh that touch of nature!
I stopped walking for a second and thought about :

What we were created for and
What we have become.
What have we done to this world and
What we will do.

I am but a strange man thinking,
Thinking about the rest,
Thinking about the people who don't think,
Thinking about the people who are dead.


I thank you all for reading through it and if you feel its an waste of time, i wouldn't mind but ask you to slip on a cotton tee and light cotton pajamas and step out into the cradle of nature. Not in the heat, not in the cold, not in the rains but in the open, and just look around.  

Worthy enough.

"How much is the red rose worth?", he asked.

"ten each sir", the florist replied.

"the yellow one?", he asked back.

"All sell for ten a piece sir."

He bought a red one and putting it in his gray backpack, he smiled at himself.
He knew she would accept a garden flower if it was he who gave it to her but then why the red rose? Why a rose at all?

He didn't know and he wasn't interested in finding an answer either for all he did in the last five minutes would reward him with a smile which was all he longed for.

......Nothing more, nothing less!

Handle with care!

"...there was a time when i could smile without any conditions; an unconditional smile.

....there was a time when i could visit a park and swing on the swing without any conflicts plaguing my mind; a conflict-less mind.

....there was a time when i would not just care for the world and just pass cards on the 1st of every year, take an opportunity to cherish life with colors on Holi, crackers in Diwali and a well-lit Christmas tree on the 25th of December; a care-free 'life-holic.'

But times changed and I am no exception.
I am just another you.
I too have been a victim of evolution and growth. I too, can no more be a kid unless i pretend to be one.


I'm 19 now, at the margin of my teenage life and i, like all of you, have a lot to carry forward from these 7 years (13-19). But yes, this time :

with conditions,
with conflicts,
and
with a tag floating right in-front of my eyes-



"This side up.Handle with care!"

The door of life : stepping out of the room !

[I'm not using poems here. They are just lines. Lines that i think, are necessary to season the writing and bring the flavour to the last line. I hope you feel them. ]

     “Every moment is a curse, every curse is a disaster,
       Every disaster is an end, and every end is a new beginning.”

So many words to say, too little to write; still I managed to put my fingers on the keyboard and go ahead with a few lines.

                 “Every moment is a picture, every picture is an expression,
                   Every expression has a meaning and every meaning is a truth.”

Searching for the truth is one of the most tiring yet interesting jobs a person can afford to do. While lazy and patient hermits sit cross-legged, eyelids shut lips moving apparently in search of the divine, the truth;
yet some find it in the silliest of places.

                             
                 “Every room has a corner, every corner starts a wall,
                   Every wall has an edge and the edge leads to the door.”

…a door that opens up to a thousand opportunities. The individual crosses the door only to find a million more of them, only to confuse himself, only to choke his arteries, and increase his pulse.
You step through the correct one, you still have a million more in-front of you. Step through a wrong one and you end up in darkness.
That’s the fallacy of the room- the room of life.

With expectations,
Vishal.

The Nature and Its Nurture !

Society is one topic that never adheres from amusing you. The vast number of individuals, the instincts that each of them present, the way they speak, walk, dress etc., everything says something or the other about their psychologies and quite interestingly, this aspect is more random than you can ever estimate.    Nature and nurture are just two concepts that seem to be quite intimately connected, yet they are not. Nature is just natural. Nurture, on the other hand, is ‘natural’ artificiality. [I will explain what I mean by this term a while later but first, let’s clarify nature.] According to a dictionary, nature is defined as- “the natural world; consisting of all things unaffected by predating human technology, production and design.” Pretty simple a definition, all it suggests is that there are certain elements in the society or the universe (if viewed from a larger perspective) that are imminent, that are obvious, that are a part of our creation and those that exist, irrespective of our existence. What we mean by ‘elements of nature’ is just this and no matter how much we read or write about it, try to mould and change it, we just cannot end in success.

[A point to be noted here is that by nature we may consider two separate viewpoints i.e. one that is a part of this universe as defined moments ago, the other being our composure of situations, our instincts and reactions, often referred to as ‘attitude’. Now attitude is a different story altogether but if I shorten my descriptions we will observe that attitude is not really natural but a vague result of nurture. So we may not consider the other definition of nature here in the description of nature.]

Nurture is a separate concept [as told earlier] but it can be derived from nature. Let’s put is this way- Nature is actually Nurtured and nurture leads us to our attitude.
By this statement, all I’m trying to convey is that nurture is something that we don’t inherit, something that’s not obvious but very random.

The human mind is built in such a way that right from childhood, we learn to think and nurture topics on our own. Some conceptions are created by our elders, some are that we discover on our own and some are just accepted by us the way they are. All these conceptions fall under Nurture.

Let us get one thing clear. The concept of nurture is interwoven with nature but unlike nature, nurtured articles, conceptions etc. exist because we make them existent in the way we choose. Now, coming to the question of importance, I would be biased towards nurture a bit more than nature. I believe that when we have plural options, we always have an alternative to our choice. This is the reason of the bias. Nurture provides us with a series of options we can choose from even when we have chosen one. Let us consider a set of individuals who’ve chosen the wrong concepts for an element. Nurture provides this set of individuals a second chance and assuming that they take up the initiative of choosing the better option, the society can well be a better place….. I’m sure of it…

Thanks,

Vishal Ghosh 

Let's talk about superstitions.

The relation between Superstitions and Destiny is as old as the origin of superstitions itself. Man always has had a tendency of changing the so called noun- DESTINY and this tendency gave rise to the origin of certain ridiculous and completely absurd beliefs that has been controlling the weaker part of human psychology since ages. Now its time to rise and not just rise against it but also eradicate these beliefs completely so that the upcoming generations wouldn’t have to fear the unknown and believe in silly superstitions under the false hope of changing the destiny.

            The other day, I was attending a discussion based on this very topic of eradicating superstitions. I pulled out my wallet and checked into one of the compartments and recalled a small conversation between me and my family. Let me share the incident (I feel like sharing this because in my opinion this is one of the most general cases in every family):

The compartment contained a ‘tabeez’ given by a person whom my family consulted with hopes of safeguarding my future. They told me that I was supposed to wear it so that any ‘accidents written in my destiny’ could be done away with. Now the argument stands that if that metal piece changes my destiny, how am I supposed to believe that? I had no idea of what my destiny was in the first case. How can I say all of a sudden that my destiny has changed just because I have worn that ‘tabeez’? Who’ll clarify what my destiny was before I wore that???

These arguments, though valid, do not stand a chance in reality. People are really scared of the unknown and destiny is one of them. It is this human weakness that gives the ‘witty god-men’ the opportunity of exploiting us and building their social stand as well as their financial one. They do not come to us to offer a deal involving destiny, it is we who go to them, helpless and bound by fear, begging for a ‘thing’ that would eradicate the evil from the destiny.

Our character is built on our instincts and our instincts are controlled by our beliefs. If we believe in superstitions, quite simply speaking, it renders us weak and limits our potential. Don’t believe in what I say. Try it out yourself. Try barring superstitious beliefs. Try, at-least for once, controlling your own destiny, try questioning the logic behind superstitions and try finding the answers yourself.  Then go and look at yourself at the mirror and you’ll understand the changes that you brought about in yourself; I bet one of them will be an increment of self-confidence…

Superstitions were introduced to control the weaker at spirit and we, the people of 21^st century, still allow superstitions to creep into the society and render it weak from within. Yes! I can feel that sigh that your heart just gave but this is the way it is and this is the way that will be, until and unless we decide to disbelieve in superstitions and motivate the weaker ones so that they can understand the scene and live the reality….You are free to start now!

All the Best!

The Social Changes

The Evolution of Sociological Perspectives

[The idea of this article was launched at my sociology classes at the college. It was only my second day at the class and the atmosphere was worth mentioning. (Hadn’t it been an article on a subject in society, I would have had it mentioned.) One of my classmates introduced herself and notified that her purpose of taking up Sociology beside Biological Sciences was to furnish her knowledge on evolution of society and consequently that of human beings in the brief history of time. The teacher had a beautiful response to the introduction and that is what attracted my attention. Let us go ahead.]

“No doubt what you just said was interesting that you are trying to find a link between the evolution of human beings and the evolution of society, but I would like to make a small correction to the entire class- We have used the word Primitive for the society that was existent before us but have we the necessary information to judge that?? Can we be judgemental about whether our ancestors were primitive, that their society was worse off than what it is today? No, we cannot. It is because of the fact that the way of expression was not right. The society has changed, but whether it has evolved or not, we cannot say because we are walking in our shoes, not on theirs. “– was the teacher’s response and I, on my part, definitely appreciate it. 

The idea is very precise and noteworthy. Before we take to criticism, we must have our subject experienced at least once. Similarly, we cannot brand our ancestral society as bad or good because we don’t have most of the idea of how it worked (excepting the historical references). I have titled this article as THE EVOLUTION OF … but I admit, it was unfair on my part to do so. But let me bring to account why I completed the title using ‘SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES’ rather than just ‘SOCIETY’. The society has just changed, not really evolved. The mind-set and the approach is what matters and these are what that changed.

                The human race has evolved quite a bit from yesterday-physically, mentally, technologically and psychologically. [Mentality and psychology are taken as two different things]. The origin of these changes is yet unknown to us, how it happened, where it happened, why it happened and so on- we do not know either of these answers with utmost perfection. What we can say about it is that the society has Changed not really evolved. The instincts have remained the same, just that they have become more furnished.

                Have we stepped into and walked on their shoes??? Do we actually know how the society worked at that time?? Do we have the adequate information so as to brand them as underdeveloped or PRIMITIVE? Think deeply on the first question that has been raised. The answer should be a negative. Why is it so?? The answer is simple and pretty reasonable. It is because they lived in a world we did not live in and howsoever historians try to figure out , we will be nowhere close to what and how they have had experienced. They used a different pair of shoes than what we us today-We won’t fit into them. But mere changing of shoe doesn’t depict evolution. Does it? No is what I suppose. We know the elements of their society but we are unaware of what ideals were followed at that time, what education was provide to youngsters, and so on. The engravings on stones or rocks tell us quite a lot but not all that’s required to prove the hypothesis that we have evolved, not just changed. We cannot justify ourselves or criticize them till we find out what their perspectives were. 

                Now if I take a different approach to the topic then it would be something like this- There were murders at the time. Yes? Yes. They killed the general public to satisfy their needs or attain vengeance. An evolved society would have this genre of people removed but has it been possible. Are there no murderers now? There are, and the number has even increased. The quality of murder has enhanced. Its economic murders now beside bloodshed. Almost all the developing countries are experiencing some monetary blunders or market crashes. Isn’t that murder? Not on flesh, that’s right but economy is equally important. All I’m trying to capture in this paragraph is that the human instincts, the basic human nature, the basic emotions have remained quite the same. It’s the taste of music that has changed. It’s the style of conquering that has changed. It’s only the outlook that has changed, perspectives that just changed, not EVOLVED.