Licence to one is licence to all

Dave and Mikhail had an argument on Mikhail’s apparent ‘hypocrisy’. After seeing Mikhail kiss his girlfriend, Dave said to Mikhail:

“If you hold that you do not wish to look at women, ‘naked’ in the form of pornography or even display because it is depraving to a woman’s dignity , it makes the woman, an object of expression, one that tries to show her as a mode of pleasure and gratification which contradicts the way we look at our own mothers and daughters. But you then kiss your girlfriend. Where does your sense of depravity go? Surely kissing a girl is using her as an object of pleasure. You don’t restrain yourself with her but take pains with depravity in movies and pictures. “

Mikhail understood Dave’s obvious annoyance. Mikhail replies:

“Without getting into concepts of love, I would try to reach to a different argument. One of license. To act against something is a ‘continuous choice’. If I fail at one, I make again a choice to act against another. If I fail at one, in one domain I can still stop myself because I still have a choice, every time, it is a choice. To say that I kissed a girl and so there is no point to struggle against movies is to think that I have no choice at all because I made one wrong choice. I did not give up my ideology did I? I did not give in to the ‘ideology’ of depravity but only to depravity. That is, the temptation to the pleasure of depravity that I not so much have to ‘act’ against but ‘struggle’ against (As man is sinful by nature thus I can never really ‘act’ against but struggle against the same). Thus what was seen was a lack of courage, a fall in battle, I can stand up again against the war. My lack of courage should not be seen as a license to lack of ideology and throw in the towel in all other places. I do not get the license because I fall to temptation. It is only an opportunity to test the character of my ideology. My ideology is not dismissed because I fell. I struggle against it because it is not right[depravity]. My failing did not make it [depravity], right/OK but only showed that it is hard to do what is right. My ideology is intact until I think it is not right. I do not fall because momentarily, I think it[depravity] is right/OK and allow myself. I only fall because it is hard and I could not fight for what is right. If you tell me I have no right anymore to struggle against any other forms of depravity is for me to accept that they have all turned right(depravity) just because I fell in one instance. Lack of courage nails my choice(of going with depravity or otherwise) but my ideology provides me more choices to choose courage and itself.

Identity of Responsibility

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The way you look at responsibility speaks a lot about the person you are
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People often say that others don’t do their work so why should I? others care less about ‘things’ so why should I be any different? One feels one gets a license to ‘choose’ his way because others too go their way and if they don’t care, why should I dwell on my responsibility of doing it irrespective of the way others are responsible for their own actions. Dave and Mikhail go through a similar argument after their History Lecture. Dave hasn’t enjoyed a good image in class because of what he has ‘sowed’ during the term. His grouse is that his teacher assess performance in the oral examination by ‘face value’ and he would lose miserably due to that. Although he is himself responsible for his so called ‘face-value’, his argument is that why should my conduct during the term have any implications on an oral examination. An oral examination should be what it is: ask a question to inquire my knowledge on the subject.

Mikhail: Let’s look at a viva [oral examination] objectively as a viva and nothing else, if i answer i should get merits

Dave: But I will appear for the viva without studying. I will be present, sit down, listen to her questions and leave. She wouldn’t give me marks even if I had answered it right

Mikhail: But Dave, you are on the wrong side. You will be in the 'right' if you study and answer and inspite of that she does not give you marks. Only then he is a candidate for protest.

Dave: Mikail, you don’t understand, she has the marks in her hands. Even if I answer, she isn’t going to consider it because of my ‘facevalue’. So what’s the point in studying?

Mikhail: Dave, if you don’t study at all, you are presupposing that she is going to judge you, what if she is impressed be you answers and has second thoghts on your ‘facevalue’? What if she realized [her wrong] that she should not give marks based on facevalue? By choosing to skip preperation, you are not giving her a chance to be rise her that what she can be, even you are judging her before hand. You are a student first. Allow yourself to do your [student] duty. It is a characteristic of a crusade but not a fitting solution to not prepare [for your exam] : Because someone may give marks on face value.

Dave: 'WHAT IF' she changes her mind [ by having second thoughts on face value]. It is but a possibility.

Mikhail: Dave, we can only go with that possibility for to go any other way is to: find a reason to not do your duty expected as a student. To quash any hope that someone can be better and this hope, you can only hope if you give her a chance of the possibility of being better. Without this possibility, is to live in pessimism that everyone is bad why should I do my duty? And without keeping the possibility hope of the goodness of man open, you will take action without a 'real' cause...you have not actually suffered (as you have not prepared) until she has actually touched the pen to the paper and devalued your performance.

Your refusal to study for the apparent injustice by her ‘face-value’ assessment, is a protest. But is it a reason to protest? It is a reason to protest if only I have done my duty expected of me that is study. How can I cry if i have not sufffered any loss? I can only suffer a loss if i study and yet injustice was meted to me. I am then a candidate of protest.

Let us all stick to definitions. What is the definition of a student and the definition of a viva? We should stick to the definition of the viva. The teacher may pervert it (by judging a student based on his conduct in the classroom: face-value) but that does not mean we have to do a tit-for-tat, join the bandwagon and wash our hands clean off our responsibility. If she is really doing something wrong, let us prove it. If we refuse to do our duty because she is not sticking to the rules and doing her duty then even we too are guilty of not sticking to the rules. Does that leave any difference? We both are moulds of the same clay.

Dave and Mikhail rise from their chairs and move to the cafetaria. It may happen that Dave was not convinced or still refused to budge to Mikhail’s reasoning. He may not prefer it not necessarily because he concedes the loopholes in his ideology but because it is not convenient. It is easy to be unconvinced when you have already decided budge. To change the intention of your action or action entirely (because of persuasion in reason) takes effort and the weight of the flesh brings down the clarity of the faculty. There is a saying: IF YOU DON'T DO ACCORDING TO HOW YOU THINK, YOU WILL THINK ACCORDING TO HOW YOU DO. People will never understand if they reason according to their convenience instead of finding out what is the right thing to do.

In school, we all have copied homeworks and graded assignments. But to justify the copying, can was say that the teachers lacked spirit and quality and did not motivate us enough to do it by ourselves? And what if the teachers were state-of-the-art? Even if they teach properly, I should have the will to do it on my own. Who will give me that?

Everyone Suffers

Dave and Mikhail are walking down a lane exhausted from a tough day at school and practice thereafter. Dave is observing Mikhail shaking his head in discontent.

Dave asks: What is is Mikhail?

Mikhail answers: When people battle for their life and others suffer for their survival and the exhaustion of the struggle for others’ survival. Compare to that our reluctance to smile often at the end of a bad day. how much more we can praise God but we don’t realize it. we only look at what is absent in our lives and are not gratituitous for what is present and equally fulfilling.

Defence Mechanism has befriended Poetry

Mikhail and Dave went to Greece for their Holidays after school. At one of the Greek God’s Monument, Mikhail wondered and asked dave, nonchalantly, that of all the Greek gods which did he patronize (his mother was greek). Mikhail expected an answer either that he loved all [Greek] gods or that his family was close to this god or that. But what Dave said surprised him. Dave said: As such I do not pray to any Gods but if you ask me, then Time is my only God.

They went back to their hotel later. In the room, Mikhail wondered in thought…he thought: That’s showing a lot of respect for time Dave, but unfortunately Time is not going to save your soul that is if you believe you have one. People can say: I don’t believe in God. They can say like Tom very earnestly confessed(when asked on similar lines of ‘Heaven’): Having a relationship with God eludes me. they can say: I don’t know. I never really spend time thinking about God. They can say: I am indifferent to the whole thing. Instead, they choose to apply euphemisms as to show they don’t do what believers do but still are better off/at par. Like Dave did in defense. I do not wish to judge him. But Dave is what he is. If he thinks he doesn’t really think about God or doesn’t spend time loving God, he doesn’t…it’s the truth. In keeping with the truth, he could have said…I don’t really spend real, ‘quality’ time talking to God, praising him, or wondering what he thinks about me and requires of me. Because that’s what my question was: Which God do you follow or are closest to,more than others? He could have said: None. But as a defense mechanism [working in him and working in all of us too quick to take note of] which he might not have been aware of (like Lucy once told me), he replied: If you ask me time is my real God…so as to change lines of the argument from factual to philosphical and poetical. I never asked Dave how sincere he is about time or what the thinks about ‘being sincere to god shows in being sincere to Time’. Also he should be pretty aware that Time is not God as God is beyond time. Thus What he said is not really what he should have but to escape from a situation where he has to choose one paticular God from polytheistic Greek Mythology and suffer more questions on what does he do in order to bring justice to his choice? Rather he chose a more noble path to say that ‘his’ real God is Time and that ‘the’ real God would see his sincerity towards ‘his’ God because ‘the’ God would surely be pleased with Dave for God is surely pleased with anyone being true to Time.

But what I am trying to say here is the application of tools [euphemisms, poetry, trite philosophy, changing the dimensions of arguments] that people often do to escape things that they themselves aren’t honest with. Like somewhere Dave might not have sat down to ask himself what meaning and importance do God and Soul make to him in his life and how they affect the same. If he did, he would have taken necessary action by the fruit of his efforts. But because he hasn’t defined their meaning in his life, he didn’t know what to say or how to be extremely honest in a situation equally casual. And language, poetry, philosophy and euphemism came to his rescue. This is how sometimes we ( all of us…you and I do not undergo any less manifestations of ‘defense mechanism’) make them[philosophy] vague when they aren’t. Because we apply them to save us rather than understand them to apply them. And we do the same to Truth. Truth has no exceptions but we bring Truth into the labrynths of our lives…and due to the shortcoming of one single important ‘choice’ we make it all the more hard to see clearly or judge if we are right and wrong. We then go on to cloth truth with exceptions because of how we have eventually applied it. and then we conclude: there is no real truth..everything has exceptions.

Hurting Another

Let us take a fictional girl, Lucy, from from a fictional place, Riverdale.Dave and friends send an email joke teasing one of their friend, Tom with lucy and in the process commented on her voice. Mikhail found the comments derogatory. Dave and his friends didn’t. why didn’t they? Is everyone different? The famous statement some are trying to immortalize rather incorrectly: what is wrong to you may not be wrong to me…what makes you feel bad many not make me feel bad…

“TRIVIALIZING THE ‘ACTION’ AND LOSS OF ‘SENSE’ OF WRONG”

(Pope John Paul II, said the sin of the 21^st century is the ‘Loss of sense of sin’)

Dave and his friends said: Lucy should take it sportingly. Haven’t we been making jokes since childhood?. Mikhail said to them: Just because you all were doing something since childhood doesn’t mean it has become right. If all of you played liberal pranks and have got accustomed to it, why do you expect others to toe the line just because you have got used to this degree of practical humor? This would be arrogance.

“ SHE SHOULD STAND UP FOR HERSELF AND TELL US IF SHE IS HURT”

Dave went on: “If she is hurt, she should come and tell us” is what they had to say. Mikhail replied: Everyone cannot speak for themselves. Some people are weak. We should stand for weak people and fight for those who can’t fight for themselves. Lucy may not come and tell you because others may brand her as someone who was hurt at the drop of a hat. This would only add salt to her injury and she would resist showing others she is hurt. But that does not mean she has not been hurt. May be if lucy didn’t worry about the situation aggravating and gossip mongers doing the damage, She would havel express herself explicitly and voice out her feelings.

“WHY DON’T ‘YOU’ GO TO HER AND ASK HER?”

Mikhail asked them: you could also go and ask lucy if she is hurt. After all you sent the email and washed your hands clean off it. They said that two can play that game. Lucy could also come to us and tell us she is hurt. As I have said before she would not come for various reasons. they said: Lucy should learn to stand up for herself and learn to express how she has felt. The point here is-Refusal to be the first one to clarify: Pride

We are reminded that wisdom and truth has not come from Man alone…if Men as philosophers have tried hard in their primeval years, we have reached a stage of moral relativism sadly. We forget revealed wisdom through scriptures. One verse (inspired ) in/ by the Bible says

IT IS GOOD TO GIVE WHEN ASKED BUT BLESSED ARE THE ONES WHO GIVE WITHOUT BEING ASKED

Thus it would be ‘virtuous’ for them to go to her and clarify because they did not wait to ‘give’ her when she eventualy asked. But coming out virtuous from issues is another matter which will be dealts with little later.

IMPARTING MORAL LESSONS

The issue was whether to apologize or not. From there the focus has shifted on giving lucy ‘moral’ lessons. Dave and group have been so kind now to educate others on self esteem and morality. But is the timing right? Should one give moral lessons to people when it is one’s duty to introspect? When I have to ask myself, “Have I wronged anyone? Should I inquire about it?” Instead of doing Dave and friends are more concerned with giving others moral lessons: If lucy is hurt she shoud come and tell us,she should learn to stand by herself. We observe this phenomenon a lot. A lot of times it is noble when done in good conscience. If you allow someone to suffer because you desire that he cultivate in himself nobility or some lesson. Clearly, an ego that stops Dave from denying himself and resolving an issue because he is more busy educating the lucy in standing for herself and speaking out of her trials is only using a moral lesson as a tool to conceal his own pride. Also if we really find immense charity in ourselves, we can always serve others (who exploit us) and then remind them (impart moral lesson) they it wasn’t in their best interest to be served but you nevertheless did the same to alleviate their suffering.

DEGREE OF ACTION

Every action has a degree of impact. What we exploit is the ‘generelization of fun’ into justifying our actions. I may take the oddest pair in class, Tom and Lucy and pair them together: “Tom loves you Lucy, he wants to have a dance with you and take you for boat ride.” The degree of fun changes when you ‘derive’ fun from demeaning the subjects of the humor. Suppose Lucy apparently has an obnoxious voice and diction. An email with words: Tom fell in love with you the day he heard you speak. Your words were melody to his ears…he wanted to keep playing your voice like a gramaphone.

To say then that it was just ‘fun’ when the degree of fun has transgressed is to be a poor discerner of cause and consequence of action. May be inspite of the transgression of ‘degree of fun’, Lucy did not feel bad. Here we shift to another moral issue: Content and Consequence

Nature of Content and Consequence of content

There are two thing of principle difference:

· Something can be bad because someone felt bad

· Something can be bad because of the nature of Content which caused harm

If your ‘knowledge’ (I should not give others the power to affect me ect) is beyond the prowess of derogatory content then you would not feel bad. Is the content then absolved of its nature?

So one feels bad because the nature of content (what is written) makes them feel bad because you have moved beyond it but the Content may still be such that it has substance to cause harm. Its consequence is harm, if it does not cause any, does not mean any ‘harm-causing substance’ ceases to exist in the Content.

SHALLOW APOLOGY…AND A SHALLOW MEANING

I will revert back to IMPARTING MORAL LESSONS for a minute. There the story went… If lucy is hurt she will come and tell us, she should learn to stand by herself. This first establishes one thing- DAVE doESn’t think HE haS done anything worth ‘hurting’. Going by that principle, if lucy is hurt then she will find a voice and intimate dave and then as she is hurt, dave will subsequently apologize? So first, ‘when’ lucy is hurt she will let dave know, means dave doesn’t think he have done anything wrong and only when she has let him know (that she is hurt)…suddenly some thing wrong has been commited, overnight?For dave apologizes? What was not wrong until dave sent the email has suddenly overnight developed characteristics of wrongdoing by lucy’s intimation. And dave will apologize consequently? So either his apology is fake because he didn’t really find reasons to apologize to her until she actually confronted him. Or if the apology is not fake then surely the email has developed derogatory content mysteriously and escaped all moral reasoning, conscience and understanding until she made dave aware of her pain. The point here is: Introspection

LOSS OF MEANING IN ACTION AND EMOTION

If you wish to resolve issues in your life, you either resolve it like like a ‘report’ or keep it ‘real. A report is to certify that (say) ‘Adam Smith lived ninety years and did not sour any relation. He had severed ties with 7 people but resolved differences just before his death and thus has an impeccable sheet of leaving the world without any broken ties’

Do we live for a certificate? Why do you want to resolve an issue just because you want to see it resolved? Just because you don’t want to think that in your life you fought with someone and left it unfinished and bleeding. You wish to see everything complete with no void and hence compromise some principle matters and reconcile? It is important to reconcile but only with love and not with certificate ideology. “Lets just resolve it as college is coming to an end and I don’t want to remember that in college I had fought with someone.”- This is certificate mentality coming to our mind. we want to keep a clean record but life loses its meaning. A good plant breaks away from weeds as they would poison the plant and its fruits. In the same way you may sever ties if having the same would be a liability. Or you may continue to be in their life because you can see beyond their shortcomings and accept them so that by your strugggle and resistance someday they will see your strenght. But to resolve issues and reconcile with people to fill a void that bothers you is to provide yourself shallow comfort. God probably sends you graces to reconcile and you take refuge in all the tools and reasons (certificate) of the devil to seal the deal of ‘Reconciliation’. There is no meaning in an action if that action was not mourned for its cause. There is no meaning in virtue if that virtue wasn’t chosen². There is loss of meaning in emotions if they are just to ‘notify’ someone by an apology as a tool. When you mourn your action and then take refuge in apology, it has meaning as meaning has led you to a contrite heart and apology ceases to be a tool but becomes a path to a baptism of a relationship. Meaning is not only in a contrite heart’s introspection but what necessary action you take in order to let the same ‘meaning’ manifest into Action. This is how Emotion Meaning and Action are intertwined. Token Apology just to mend fences not territories of our mind and doing things just for getting ‘it done with’ so as to not feel a void. A void which has been left to fill with love and we place our certificate in the void and close it never to feel the emptiness [of the void] again.

BEING VICTORIOUS OUT OF SITUATIONS OR VIRTUOUS?

Most of us resolve issues or challenge life’s problems and incidences with an approach of ‘coming out victorious’. We will always add: Atleast we learned something…But It was a good experience…Atleast I know now how it feels… I have some idea now what it is.

We want to fix things, do only what is useful or will benefit us, keep company with those who will protect out intertest. Everyhing is done or said or lived to serve one interest or the other in order to be eventually victorious. What we don’t realize is this ‘victorious’ ideology leads ofen to ‘SHALLOW MEANING’ . A token apology or token presence any other act done just to be eligible or to emerge victorious from an activity or service may culminate into-dishonor to meaning. it is bringinig dishonor to vocation, life, the people we meet and relatioships. We are just trying to serve our interests with people and relationships until we come out ‘victorious’ through it but to what end eludes me.

Instead we can resolve to live our lives to convert every fight, argument, issue, cause, action, situation and circumstance into an opportunity to come out virtuous¹. Seeing everything as an opportunity to rise higher than oneself everytime and to dwell on how we can be better us human beings everyday and how every invisible thing (Virtues, God, Feelings, Understanding, Wisdom, senses, reason) can be used to heal and love the visible and aid the everything visible world to its rightful honor and purpose.

1.St. JoseMaria Escriva: Lord help me to convert every circumstance of my life into an opportunity to love you

2. Aristotle: A virtue is not a virtue if it is not chosen.

Inability and Action

I wanted to skip college today. I had had it with lectures, and coming in for a few hours and leaving very early so much to make you feel that you just came to show your face. When I thought about skipping class, lots of things came to my mind. why was it not easy to just skip college? There was something holding me back. What was it? I was not alone. My decision didn’t affect myself alone anymore. My project team and I had to visit our project guide. If I was missing, I thought…”Well, they would just go, do their thing and return…they don’t need me”. But the choice I had to make now is between responsibility and ‘affording to skip as they can do without me’. Do I get to skip college just because they can take care of themselves and can pull it off without me? does responsibility not demand my presence? What if they wished to use the same reasons and skip college leaving the onus on me to visit the guide and face some music alone? May be they would not go to the guide entirely and call for going some other day when I am present. My selfishness to stay at home would cost me anyways. It would be yet another day we schooled without meeting our guide. I was caught in a tussle between my own comfort and my responsibility towards others. The presence that is neeed, the contribution through words, through ideas, through sharing the anxeity while reaching her cabin, the suffering to be shared, the confusion to be shared and sharing the misdeamonrs of not completing what was resolved for. I would not be present for all of these and 60 strikes would have to be borne by my team in halves when we could bear twenty each. Would I want to be there to stare at the computer screen clueless or wish to stay at home because anyways I know I do not write the program as my team member does…so he doesn’t need me. But am I willing to share the boredom with him? When he is suffering with a piece of code he cannot unravel, am I present to at least share the perplexity? If not contribute then atleast share my part of the responsibility in being aware of what is the perplexity all about? THIS IS RESPONSIBILITY. Or do I say I have other professional priorities and so my hands are tied. May be you do have professional commitments, may be you do play professionally or are engaged in meetings regularly. I can express my inability and people will surely understand but when am I going to do something about it? when am I going to do something about recovering from the inability for I have fallen short of what I should not. And so I may often express my inability (say may be towards my responsibility) but when am I willing to atone, compensate and do damage control for it? Much of our character is not in the weakness of failings but how we mourn them. Man always fails. But How he rises, ‘makes do’, measures up and owns up is left to live the life that is offered. How far can I go to prove-That was not ‘me’ who failed..It is me but someone I wish to isolate from as I have risen again like the morning sun…and he has set like with the evening dusk. For most of us our dusk is still on…

Apostle Of Life

Love has many levels. Intially its only love. Later on it make take many different meaning and terminologies. I realize that I am an apostle of Life. first, I expressed to people how the Beatles were musical genius with eloquent words and soul rendering melody. They were revolutionary and avant-garde of their times. Then came ‘reasoning’ and love of wisdom. I told all my friends about logic and reason and we started debating things and issues using our ‘reason’. I even started writing using different arguments one superlative over the other. I called them my passions. Soon I realized whatever influenced me and I thought it was good for me, I make sure I spread it. like sharing the love. We may love what we do and glorify it. we may receive love and enjoy its perpetual benefits and perks. But we can never truly love it completely until we create the very same love we experience for someone else. To make our encounter an encounter for others, spreading what we enjoy in love then is actually spreading the truth. Let others too feel the same what you feel, if friendship has to be upheld, what greater freidship than being a friend through joy, joy given and an invitation to others to know and experience the same things you are grateful of.

Apostolate. Men spread awareness about diseases out of urgency. The faithful spread awareness out of concern for the soul. But be an Apostle Of Life like the bible says:
So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. (Mt 5:16)

Allow people to know why life is an encounter and to whom the credit goes. Tell them of why you are in high spirits all day. tell the how jogging does great to your self-esteem, how writing is an expression of your deepest self, how dancing is charming and walking with a girl is endearing, how listening to someone is noble and reaching out, godly, how choice of music is what defines us and movies mirror life, how books have stirred great inner revolts and how insincerity may not fall short of sin if you banish the existence of God by your attitude and conduct towards God’a day.

SHARE. SPREAD. CONVEY. EXPRESS. Let your identity be a flame…enkindle another and create more light in the world…be an Apostle Of Life

Ordinary Little things

Yesterday, I was glad of the way things were going. Gladness for the way things were going? If I could feel gladness for way things go and not necessarily for events, rewards, smiles, presents and objects then it goes without saying that I have humbled my threshold for gladness: all-encompassing and embracing.
Little things should make us happy. Why don't ordinary little things make us happy? Why only should graduating, positive feedback, A good thing, Victory or fulfillment from primary passions give us joy? Is happiness derived from sense of achievements? Probably. I do not have to start research to prove that. But what is our sense of achievement and why are we very sophisticated when it comes to feeling a sense of acheivment? I am doing engineering? I have received an award?Chance of recognition? received credit?I gave a remarkable performance?
why not also try this: Ordinary little things done well and with love...with sincerity and under god's sun. This sense of achievement is for me beyond compare...
We have big aims and we don't realize sometimes that the heartache and daily anxiety of these 'long-term' aims abet the failure of daily little successes. A goal, year away on the calendar may see us so self-indulgent that we may forget our duties and priorities to people and relationships every day. This is choosing achievements, one you have not seen and one that may never be over one you can create 'now' and one you can feel now. Strange that we postpone and shove a joy that is in proximity in the faith that 'all the effort in apparently sacrificing those ordinary little blissful moments' somehow will be compensated after the calendar year.
That I can run and stop to tie my lace, that I can feel hopeful of my favorite show in the evening, that I can be proud of myself for a day well lived revering time and God's another day of mercy. That I can be at service to others if I choose to and deny myself sometimes, that there is so much left to know and so many others things to be sensitive about, so many people to be grateful to, so many lists to make, so much character to be shown in doing your own things and making wise and potent decisions. I make one right now: To keep long term plans...the man this boy is going to become but not to glorify them. For now, my allegiance lies towards the next 5 hours...My everyday moment of truth ( of ordinary gratitude to God's abundance for allowing me to be his instrument in extra-ordinary ways.)