Why do you fight?

There’s this thing going on in my country right now, maybe you’ve heard of it. It is not something I am proud of, of course. But I’ve been told not to write about it.

Before you assume anything, it has nothing to do with censorship, or fear, or any similar noun. If I chose to, I could very well write about it. It’s just that the person who has asked me not to write about it, has just asked me not to write off. She is put off by it. So, I agree. But then, with the end of day, Thursday looming overhead, and having just returned from a four kilometre run, by brain is too high it seems to think of anything. And so, I begin, randomly, and with the JNU incident as the latest example of the thing I am to talk about.

Without further ado, let us begin then.

We look at the world through a lens. All of us, with no exceptions. This lens is something that is formed, by a whole multitude of factors, ranging from education, to experiences, to relationships. The fun thing about the lens is we can both be looking at the same thing, and we both would see different things. We’d get the partial view. But then, that is no surprise, is it?

We are wired to function that way. We ignore the evidence that does not neatly align with our worldview, to the point that we actually start fighting anything, anybody who says otherwise. We say, more often than not, “Nothing else can exist”, because changing the lens, modifying it, is so so hard, that we like to delay it to the point it breaks.

That sounds dumb, doesn’t it?

Breaking something, something so valuable, because you deny change. You deny the possibility of change. You deny the existence of it. It’s both dumb, and easy, which is also why, so many of us, at different points of time, do it. Most of us, most of us do it. All of us is a generalization, I am still not comfortable in using.

It is easy.

It is easy to look the other way. It is easy to behave as if the entire universe is planning and plotting against us. Us, yes, not the person, or ideology involved, but us. It becomes personal. It becomes personal, because it is an attack on our worldview, not at the person/thing we are supposed to be fighting for/against. The what, and why of why we are fighting stops mattering after a while.

You just pick a side, and fight.

Why?

Think about that for a little while. Why do you fight for something?

Think.

It has been a long time. We really need to see things for what they are.. we need to think. The people, need to be in a position, where they have the opportunity to think. Most of the population does not have that opportunity. We are born, we are trained to fight, and we die, worn out. Somewhere, in the middle, we ought to stop, and think. And really, look at things. We deserve that. As a race. As this singularity in the vast space of non-living, living but non-thinking things.

Take a moment or two, and look at the beauty of things, even in the midst of the absurdity. Help the fellow travellers. Do not be a cynic.

Bah! I’m blabbering now. Good night, or morning to the people elsewhere.