Humility

An insane number of people have contributed in varying proportions to my current state. But they have all contributed in some manner. These are people I have met, and not met- read their books, heard them talk on TV or radio, etc.

Then how can I claim that "I did this", that "I achieved something"? How can I call any achievement "my own"? How can I be proud?

The only option that I have is to be humble.

Individualism

Does it make any sense at all to talk of individualism?

For a certain period I was obsessed with the idea of individualism. It seemed to me to be some kind of eternal truth that had thankfully dawned upon me. But in this semester, while doing the 'infamous' course RDL340, my views, which had already begun to sway away from the charm of individualism, now seem to be testing the strength of the foundations of this lonely building of individualism. I see myself roaming around in the basement of this building gently hitting and testing the pillars on which it stands. I am excited by the possibility that all these pillars, or at least some of them, might be hollow and may fall at the slightest touch, bringing down the whole of the building with them . (Hmm it seems like I am turning to violence talking of destroying buildings and all!)

See, it's very simple (pretty much like everything in philosophy is). Relations cannot be avoided. We do not (yet) have a choice in that regard. Humans are not born out of a void. They are born of other humans. The fact that I exist in this world (if I exist that is, and let us assume in this article that I do exist) necessarily implies that I have an indestructible relation with at least some other humans (viz my biological mother, father, and via extension, to their biological mothers and fathers, and so on). Scinetifically speaking (and assuming that Biology is correct), I derive my nature, my charactersitics, features, traits from my parents, and they from theirs. Then how can I be an independent entity if my very existence depended on the existence of some other human? For I could not have been born if my parents did not exist. One could argue that it is only for my arrival into this world that other humans are needed, and that after a certain age I become an independent being. But is that a correct claim? Even if I were to assume that I could spend the rest of my life after that initial stage without coming in contact with any other human and  without taking their help in any form, I would still have to interact with other living beings (at least plants) and nature in general. I cannot live without breathing in air and drinking water either. Don't they relate me to nature?

But one could further say that I have digressed from the topic, and that I should talk only about relations between human beings. And then I would say that let us take the example of our lonely human again. Is he free of relations? Is he independent of any other human being?

(To be continued...)

अज्ञात

पलक आँसुओं को पकड़े है
हवा ग़म से महकती है
ज़मीन सूख सी गई है
ख़ुशी के अकाल से
बरखा भी अब रो-रो कर बरसती है

अभी तो भीनी सी खुशबू थी इक कली की
कल जब फूल खिलेगा तो क्या होगा
रात की अफवाह भर से साँझ ने मुँह ढक लिया
जब रात आएगी तो क्या होगा

अपनी पलकों से कहना
जकड़े रखें आँसुओं को
उनका दामन न छोड़ें
कि ये आँसू तभी गिरें अब
जब ख़ुशी की बाढ़ में मिलकर
ये मीठे हो जाएँ

(It's a poem that I must have written in the 4th semester; found it at the back of a notebook)

Well, what can I say?

People change.

The Transformation

There are times when persons can become instinctive, nay impulsive, even though that is not how they usually are. And then they can do things like making their blog public (hoping secretly that many-many people will read and like it while simultaneously fearing that the opposite might happen!). Now I am not trying to hint in any way that I could be such a person as I just described- that was just a passing observation and nothing more. I had ENTIRELY different reasons for making this dear blog public, which I cannot reveal.

Ahem. Anyways, the title of the blog was relevant considering the earlier posts, and it is likely that one may wonder in the future, "why the hell is this blog titled 'A Sea of Questions'", and that would be a perfectly natural thought. But I have nevertheless decided not to change the name for now because of 'emotional reasons' (read laziness- just joking, it's actually emotional reasons).

Also, here is the old description of this blog (I don't wanna delete it)-

"Many postings will be in the first person. That's just a way of writing and saying that these are my views and may not apply to you.

Also, many posts may seem incomplete. That is bound to happen- this is a sea of questions, mostly without universally acceptable answers."

And on this note, I sign off this post.

You

You may be what I think you are
but
that is not all that is there to you.
There is a lot more that I can never know.

I may try to box you, simplify you
but that will just be what it is and nothing more- my perception of you.

You are much more complex than I can ever imagine.

Myself

Anyone else cannot know everything about me, however hard I and/or they try.
Can I tell everything about myself to someone else? No. And this is not because I don't want to, it is because I cannot even if I want to, with all my heart.

This is an example of the limitation of communication, of language.
Or is it?

Don't I have to understand/know myself to be able to explain myself to someone else?
What does understanding/knowing mean?
Even if I understand myself will I be able to express it to others?

Knowing myself is not like finding an equation/model that governs me, that predicts my behavior. I don't know what knowing is. I am not even sure if I can know. I seem to be committing the mistake of talking of 'knowing' in the limited sense that science talks about. I think there is much more to knowing than equations and proofs and classifications, predictions, models and probabilities.