Man errs...until his strife is ended

I was reading this novel “Fist of God” by Fredrick Foresythe and it made me think about all our arrogance as a human race. The novel was based upon Gulf War and the story writing was superb but I can’t seem to overlook the reality that how much WMD (Weapons for Mass Destruction) we have created. The technology for destruction is million miles ahead then the technology we are researching for upliftment.

Does man deserve his name Homo sapiens? It was not given to him; he gave it to himself, in his arrogance imagining he was sapient. It was a fancied sagacity. We elected wrong leaders; we gave our future and that of our children to those who saw only good in destruction and exploitation of our natural resources. We fell for the dangerous optimism of the ignorant or worse of the financially interested. We exhausted our resources, both spiritual and physical, religion ceased to offer consolation, our political system gave no enlightenment. Suppression took place of fulfillment.

It is saddening but true that in a world crying out for medicine, tools, housing, life itself, our greatest efforts went into inventing of murder machines and the ways to tear our planet to pieces. Were we capable of developing new morality? This is the question that first came to my mind after I finished the novel. Will future men regard the earth’s resource as finite? Which ofcourse they are but in their arrogance fail to see it or will they continue their blind squandering of them as if they had no end? This remark is for those OPEC countries who think because they have 100 years of crude, they can hog the planet earth by their petroleum.

Also I heard a lot of cries about ethics when scientists were cheering about their successful cloning experiment. I read the argument both ways, their usefulness and their dangerous outcomes. The only dangerous outcomes people or religious people condemn is that it is not ethical. Who are we to play god? The usefulness is confined I fear to only those sectors of people who can afford them. But what about those who really need it but don’t have the resource to pay them? What about third world countries citizens? My opinion is that we reasoned that regardless of the danger to life on this planet we did not have the right, as people to play with the product of three billion years of evolution on our planet. Who are we, as people to believe that we are free to apply techniques to living things that will deeply confuse their genetics? I am ofcourse not speaking of animal or plant breeding, I am speaking of creating mutations.

I am afraid to see the path that we are going, going in the name of progress but it really is an engine of destruction. Yes we have to arm ourselves to protect our mother land but so are the other countries thinking the same thing and where will it stop? Until now only read about the virtues of global warming but saw this summer first hand. It was raining here in the middle of summer which can only account to the none other than our global warming effect. Not many people would think about it, they would just shrug off and would go on their business, but this is our business. If we fail to see it now I fear it may be too late to do anything other than face the consequence.

A short horror story

I read this book called “Worlds true horror stories” or something like that. In fact it focused more on spirits and all stories were true i.e. they have not just been fragment of imaginations but true story with dates, time and location. Interesting to see that most of the mishaps have been noted in England. Since 16th century England had noted and recorded many witches and spirits incidents. The first time I read this book was when I was 12 yrs old and it scared the shit out of me. Every time I would see outside of the window at night and I would imagine a face staring back at me. My parents were upbraiding me telling why you read this book. I proposed them to read the book as still it was interesting and they denied it out rightly. Perhaps they saw the after effects it had on me and so they wisely kept away from reading it. Now I know how that kid in the movie the sixth sense felt. “I see dead people”, no way not me, you got to be crazy to think that, I am talking about that kid in the movie.

Anyway I have a short horror story to tell. It started with a man buying a house at the outskirt of the city. It was a beautiful house with a big garden and French windows overlooking an expanse garden and pathway leading to the dense woods. Things were good in the beginning as always is. But then subtle things started to happen. Some things which are conventional, which you hear whispers about it but still ignore. Some rumors in the city but you still disregard it because at the back of your mind, you are skeptical. However things started to change in 3 months after the man possessed the house. Suddenly without any warning recession came. Finance minister began yelling about high inflation and slow down of GDP growth rate. Suddenly all the sectors started declining in their growth. Inevitable happened and that is the guy couldn’t make the mortgage payment. This had to happen and within six months the guy had to leave the house. But the next month, things started to get better just like snow melting and sun coming out, the economy stopped sliding south side and began to make a remarkable recovery. The property value got doubled in just 2 months after the guy left the house because of non payment mortgage for his house.

That is the different thing that there was a dead lady in the basement but still the property value wouldn’t have been affected. Such a horror story which shakes the core out of me.

Jokes...but at whose expense?

Have you ever thought that whenever we joke, it’s either at the expense of somebody else or on our expense. The latter has minute percentage. I have just realized that many times I joke of course I joke at somebody else expense but those aren’t the crude jab, just the harmless little fluster. Yes, no doubt I get the predictable reaction that is laughter but then I thought will the joke be taken as a bona fide? I mean the simple solution would be to step into his/her shoes and I did stepped and I had no problem with that. You see my nature is very humble. Even if somebody compliments me, flatters me I would be visibly flustered, very embarrassed and will try profusely to change the subject so that I wont be in the lime light. Even my friends know this especially my cricket playing friends. Everytime I would bowl an excellent over or took a prize wicket, they would all congratulate me and I would just shrug off and say I was lucky. So now even after playing grand when they would come to congratulate me and as usual I would shrug and then they would complete my statement for me saying “ yea you were lucky or it just happened isn’t it?” and I would say yes that’s the way it is.

From childhood the only good thing I know about me is that I accept my nature. Every person has their bad qualities and I suspect they don’t know about it but may be they don’t want to see the mirror. I would consent with what ever bad or good qualities I have because I am accepting it. So my point is whenever somebody jokes at my expense and if there 1 % of truth in it, I would laugh and would bear no grudges. For jokes to be effective, actually it has to have a small proportion of truth and rest fiction otherwise a whole dose of truth isn’t funny. So I had no problem when someone jokes at my expense but how many people would be offended? I never realized that. Now theres this distinction between joke and pulling legs but not in a joking way. I know the exact word in gujarati but don’t know in English otherwise you might get a better picture of what I am trying to say. Perhaps an example or something might throw some light on what I am trying to say. You know sometimes when you don’t like a person and you want to say something mean and direct but you don’t say in the direct language but would make it a joke and the ultimate goal is to make him realize what you are trying to say or jab at him. That’s the best I could do right now. So I was saying is there is a distinction and I never ever would do the latter because I don’t know how. Some people are very efficient and could do it without even a moments notice and impromptu but I am not cut out for that. Anyway even I am not sure where I am going with this but what I am trying to say is that if I continue to joke then may be my nature will become like this and at every opportunity I would be making jokes at somebodys expense without realizing the implication it may have on the other person. Than I would be too late to stop because this habit would have been molded in my nature by constant process.

One things is sure, I just thought about this and writing it but I can guarantee one thing is I wont remember any of this stuff tomorrow. Its like preaching one day and then forgetting about it. Start fresh everyday that’s what I believe in. you need to have some justification for your terrible memory and the start fresh sentence looks good so it serves my purpose of cloaking my terrible memory.