Skip to main content

Dying without a thought



One of the greatest thinkers of the twentieth century, Bertrand Russell, said, “Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.” A lion’s share of the evils in the human world could be pre-empted if people started making use of their thinking faculty.

When I returned home an hour ago after dropping Maggie at her workplace, Kittu, my cat, accompanied me from the car porch as he usually does and entered the house even before I did. He has inculcated a sense of entitlement, thanks to my pampering as Maggie alleges. He did something odd today. Instead of going to one of his usual places to sleep, he climbed on to the chair which I normally use for working with my laptop. He went to sleep within seconds. He usurped my place without a second thought.
 
Kittu: Self-contentment
Well, there’s no first thought either for him. Like Walt Whitman, I always end up envying his thoughtless self-contentment. Whitman wished to be like the animals. “They are so placid,” he said. “They do not sweat and whine about their condition … Not one kneels to another,” not even to any god.

But we human beings can’t do that, of course.  We have a more complex mind. So we sit and calculate the gains and losses of our loves. We calculate our neighbours’ gains and losses even more meticulously. We are so much concerned about their gods and totems, their ups and downs, their lifestyle or lack of style. And then we mess up our lives and theirs too. We give sweet names to all that mess: like patriotism, nationalism, gau raksha, and so on.

And these patriots and nationalists are always absolutely certain of themselves while wise people are full of doubts and hesitations. Of course, there’s always been a particular breed of people who rush in where angels fear to tread.  I wish those people would start exercising their thinking faculty. Just a wish; nothing in wrong in wishing, right?




Comments

  1. "while wise people are full of doubts and hesitations". This explains an awful lot, stupidity seems to have a louder voice. In a society, a crying baby seems to get more attention. I have seen this in a working set up, fundamentalist mindset and limiting beliefs. I don't understand the power of herd mentality, but it is very persuasive and prevalent in its establishment. Right from vehement supporters to violent mentalities - I guess that describes death much sooner than it can actually happen. If growth and improvement is stunted, that pretty is death isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's easier to go with the herd, thinking is not needed at all. Moreover you get a feeling that there's a whole group to support you. This outlook has been reinforced by present day nationalists too.

      Delete
  2. "And then we mess up our lives and theirs too."- Nice comparison with the cat. They just live in the moment.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Precisely. And they are contented too. My cat teaches me some nice lessons.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

We become like our enemies

Neeti Nair Book Discussion The epigraph of Neeti Nair’s book, Hurt Sentiment [see previous two posts for more on the book, links below], is a quote from Pakistani poet Fahmida Riaz (1946-2018).             In the past I used to think with sadness             today I laughed a lot as I thought             you turned out exactly like us             we were not two nations, brother! ‘We’ refer to Pakistan and India. India has now become a Hindu Pakistan with a Hindu Jinnah as prime minister. It is said that we tend to become like our enemies. The Hindu Jinnah’s India has proved that even nations can become like their enemies. Neeti Nair’s book has only four chapters plus an introduction and an epilogue. I discussed the first two chapters in the last two pos...

The Republic of India

Dashrath Manjhi My country is completing 75 years of its being a republic. I’ve been asked to deliver a short speech in the morning assembly of my school on the occasion. How to speak to young students on a political topic? I expressed my concern to a colleague who then asked me what being a republic actually means. Isn’t independence enough? That was enough for me to get the stuff for my speech. Independence or freedom is dangerous without duties and responsibilities. The Constitution brings us those duties and responsibilities while also guaranteeing us the security we require as citizens. Liberty, fraternity, equality, justice, freedom to worship whichever god you like… No, I can’t speak on those things to school students. So, I contemplated a while… and remembered Dashrath Manjhi. In 1959, a poor young woman died in a remote village in Bihar. She had had a fall on the mountainside where she lived with her husband, Dashrath Manjhi, a poor tribesman. Dashrath wanted to save h...

Was India tolerant before Modi?

Book Discussion The Indian National Congress Party is repeatedly accused of Muslim appeasement by Narendra Modi and his followers. Did the Congress appease Muslims more than it did the Hindus? Neeti Nair deals with that question in the second chapter of her book, Hurt Sentiments , which I introduced in my previous post: The Triumph of Godse . The first instance of a book being banned in India occurred as an effort to placate a religious community. That was in 1955. It was done by none other than the first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru. The book was Aubrey Menen’s retelling of The Ramayana . Menen’s writing has a fair share of satire and provocative incisiveness. Nehru banned the sale of the book in India (it was published in England) in order to assuage the wounded Hindu sentiments. The book “outrages the religious feelings of the Hindus,” Nehru’s government declared. That was long before the Indira Gandhi’s Congress government banned Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses ...

Waiting for the Mahatma

Book Review I read this book purely by chance. R K Narayan is not a writer whom I would choose for any reason whatever. He is too simple, simplistic. I was at school on Saturday last and I suddenly found myself without anything to do though I was on duty. Some duties are like that: like a traffic policeman’s duty on a road without any traffic! So I went up to the school library and picked up a book which looked clean. It happened to be Waiting for the Mahatma by R K Narayan. A small book of 200 pages which I almost finished reading on the same day. The novel was originally published in 1955, written probably as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi and India’s struggle for independence. The edition that I read is a later reprint by Penguin Classics. Twenty-year-old Sriram is the protagonist though Gandhi towers above everybody else in the novel just as he did in India of the independence-struggle years. Sriram who lives with his grandmother inherits significant wealth when he turns 20. Hi...