How we strive to break away from what we see as the 'Older Generation'! We see ourselves as somehow, in some mystic way, better than those who went before us. We like to belive that we are better, smarter, and more mature than our forebears were at our age.
But are we right? I do not think so.
Children often find it hard to believe that their parents could have had a love-lfe before they married. And the thought that something like that still continues, is "Eww!!!! Gross!!!!".
Funny. Really funny. Because when these children grow up, they do exactly the same things. That is how the human race proliferates. Social mores are constantly being churned, to create a dynamic environment, so as to not allow ennui to set in. If that happens, the younger generation will probably be the last.
Imagine, if the world wasn't the way about morality the way it is. Not just about sexual mores, though they are a good example. We decry the lack of proper sexaual education to the generation growing up, and cry that they may be influenced by
'undesirable elements' in this age of instant information access.
Even leaving aside the fact that this hullaboo is nothing but an attempt to shift responsibility, let us try to imagine how life would be if there WAS proper sex-ed, involving both emotional and physical issues.
We would be taught about love, sex, happiness, relationships, and marriage (among much else). We would sit in a classroom listening to lectures. Do you think it would be fun, if the subject wasn't taboo otherwise in society?
Mathematics is almost as integral to human existence as sex, (although in an obviously different way, despite the objections of some mathematicians to the contrary) yet are we all enthusiastic about Calculus - II, whispering and exchanging sly grins amongst ourselves when the professor has his back to us?
Of course not.
Yet make mathematical knowledge the stronghold of a select few, and the society will change. Mathematicians will be revered as long as they keep their secrets to themselves.
What is commonplace inevitably acquires the tag of 'worthless' to growing minds. What is routine rarely, if ever, holds their imaginations enthralled. This is the way we humans work, how our minds function.
And this is not relegated to the teenagers alone. The immense industry dedicated to producing juicy Tabloids lays rest to that misconception. All of us like the uncommon. The spicy, the unusual, the unexperienced. We like to dream, to fantasise about what we have no idea about. I hardly think Angelina Jolie sees herself the way the hordes of Papparazzi and the Tabloid readers do...
This is what we are, who we are. Fantasy is part of our humanity. For what is a man without imagination?
Friday, September 29, 2006
The right to Live (and Die)
What I can never get, is why people make such a fuss out of suicides. This morning in the paper, I was again faced with the news of someone taking their own life. This time around though, it was a 60 yr old lady who did it as part of a religious ritual (She was a Jain). Half of the media pundits are saying it is a disguised suicide, the other half intoning that religious rituals are sacrosant, and thus above questioning on the so-called moral grounds.
But what no-one here is saying, is that if a man has the right to live, (declared a natural human right, not a constitutional one), why not one to die?
To deny a person the right to die is simply hypocrisy, nothing more. The argument that is usually put forward, to counter the validity of granting legitimacy to suicides is that a person is not in his/her rational state of mind when they decide to kill themselves.
As if we, sitting here, on our chairs are. A whole load of bull. Who is anyone to dictate whether I live or die? Who is anyone to push his/her morality over me, if I should choose that path?
Noone.
The only reason, the only real reason that suicide is taboo, is because it is detrimental to the society as a whole. If a man removes himself from this world, he is od no more use to the society. And so the society tries to prevent you from taking that step.
In India, I find something even more bizarre. Attempt to suicide is an offence. You can be booked for it. I find that so ludicruously insane that I am at times flabbergasted as to how to respons to such a situation.
The world is slowly going daft infront of my eyes, and according to the newly changing standards of sanity, it isn't. Which must mean that according to these new standards, I am going insane.
Striving to come back to the topic under the spot here, why is it so hard for us to imagine that a person might NOT be under duress, might not be under the influence of depressives, might not be in an unbalanced state of mind, and still may choose to not live any further?
The almost haughty expectancy of people to seemingly demand that every other person view life as AS sacred as they do, is contemptible.
The moment we take away the right to die, we are no longer a society that is a guarantor of liberty. For where is the liberty here? It is only a partial liberty.
It may be likened to the state of the pre-reform days in the US. Where masters of an estate may not kill the slave (in some cases) but may torture them in any other way they want.
We speak of the men of our Armies with great pride. We are proud of them, and respect them, for they are willing to lay down their lives for our security. There we are not talking about the sacntity of life, as our security is at stake, if those lives are held sacred. So human life is not so sacred after all, even in the so-call modern world.
Armymen may die, if they so choose, but only in the service of others. They may die no other way, with honour. For a jawan to shoot himself under the stress of not being able to go home to take care of his sick parents, who are on their deathbed, when there is no one else to look after them, is perhaps the most understandable of situations. The man felt so inadequate, that he saw no point in living any longer if he counld not fulfil his obligations to those most basic of masters - conscience and afection.
And this is not hypothetical, it has happened. Even in such cases, the suicide is viewed with contempt, as a sign of weakness. If that jawan had a sister, no youth would marry her. She would be 'tainted' forever by her brother's 'folly'.
What I see is honour. Perhaps the old Samurai of Japan would agree here. Suicide was the honourable way out to them, not the weak one. Hara-kiri is perhaps one of the best systems of restoring honour in the world, giving the incompetent to reclaim his respect in others' eyes by the one thing that was totally in his grasp. His death.
But as we move away from those times, there is more to the revulsion of suicide than simple selfishness. We are increasingly moving ourselves away from death, mentally. We see new medicines, we see less conflict, and lesser war deaths. We see very old people and hope to live longer than even them. And we try not to think about death.
Children are taught to not think about it, not being told if there a death in the family. Adolescents' queries are brushed away, and by the time they enter adulthood, they are already conditioned to maintain the status quo, and carry it forward in time, in turn teaching their youngers.
Civilised? I think not. What we are becoming is more and more deluded. And we are the ones doing the deluding.
So I say, Give me the right to live as I may make my life, that is my birth right. And Give me the right to die as I make choose to, that is my death right.
But what no-one here is saying, is that if a man has the right to live, (declared a natural human right, not a constitutional one), why not one to die?
To deny a person the right to die is simply hypocrisy, nothing more. The argument that is usually put forward, to counter the validity of granting legitimacy to suicides is that a person is not in his/her rational state of mind when they decide to kill themselves.
As if we, sitting here, on our chairs are. A whole load of bull. Who is anyone to dictate whether I live or die? Who is anyone to push his/her morality over me, if I should choose that path?
Noone.
The only reason, the only real reason that suicide is taboo, is because it is detrimental to the society as a whole. If a man removes himself from this world, he is od no more use to the society. And so the society tries to prevent you from taking that step.
In India, I find something even more bizarre. Attempt to suicide is an offence. You can be booked for it. I find that so ludicruously insane that I am at times flabbergasted as to how to respons to such a situation.
The world is slowly going daft infront of my eyes, and according to the newly changing standards of sanity, it isn't. Which must mean that according to these new standards, I am going insane.
Striving to come back to the topic under the spot here, why is it so hard for us to imagine that a person might NOT be under duress, might not be under the influence of depressives, might not be in an unbalanced state of mind, and still may choose to not live any further?
The almost haughty expectancy of people to seemingly demand that every other person view life as AS sacred as they do, is contemptible.
The moment we take away the right to die, we are no longer a society that is a guarantor of liberty. For where is the liberty here? It is only a partial liberty.
It may be likened to the state of the pre-reform days in the US. Where masters of an estate may not kill the slave (in some cases) but may torture them in any other way they want.
We speak of the men of our Armies with great pride. We are proud of them, and respect them, for they are willing to lay down their lives for our security. There we are not talking about the sacntity of life, as our security is at stake, if those lives are held sacred. So human life is not so sacred after all, even in the so-call modern world.
Armymen may die, if they so choose, but only in the service of others. They may die no other way, with honour. For a jawan to shoot himself under the stress of not being able to go home to take care of his sick parents, who are on their deathbed, when there is no one else to look after them, is perhaps the most understandable of situations. The man felt so inadequate, that he saw no point in living any longer if he counld not fulfil his obligations to those most basic of masters - conscience and afection.
And this is not hypothetical, it has happened. Even in such cases, the suicide is viewed with contempt, as a sign of weakness. If that jawan had a sister, no youth would marry her. She would be 'tainted' forever by her brother's 'folly'.
What I see is honour. Perhaps the old Samurai of Japan would agree here. Suicide was the honourable way out to them, not the weak one. Hara-kiri is perhaps one of the best systems of restoring honour in the world, giving the incompetent to reclaim his respect in others' eyes by the one thing that was totally in his grasp. His death.
But as we move away from those times, there is more to the revulsion of suicide than simple selfishness. We are increasingly moving ourselves away from death, mentally. We see new medicines, we see less conflict, and lesser war deaths. We see very old people and hope to live longer than even them. And we try not to think about death.
Children are taught to not think about it, not being told if there a death in the family. Adolescents' queries are brushed away, and by the time they enter adulthood, they are already conditioned to maintain the status quo, and carry it forward in time, in turn teaching their youngers.
Civilised? I think not. What we are becoming is more and more deluded. And we are the ones doing the deluding.
So I say, Give me the right to live as I may make my life, that is my birth right. And Give me the right to die as I make choose to, that is my death right.
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