The Pragmatist vs The Romantic

Hello Dear Readers,
Thanks for stopping by my blogsite. Dr.Phosphorus greets you and apologizes for short hiatus from blogging. I am just sharing some random thoughts again. Subject? 'Humanity' again which never seems to sate my curiosity!

As you might already know I tend to intellectualize everything. Some of the favorite things that I try to intellectualize are Life, Capitalism, USA, Love, Human Foetus, Women, Men, Future, and Knowledge. As is the case with most people who attempt to do that, I also feel that I must refrain from a ham-handed way of dissecting the most intimate feelings that we as human are wont to feel. Intellectualizing a topic like 'love' or 'friendship' does not mean the writer does not feel those emotions or does not believe in those feelings. If there is a seller of ancient lamps on the street who is hawking his products it need not necessarily mean he does not know the value of what he is selling. It just so happens he knows not just the value but also the worth of the product. I am one such person who knows the value and the worth of these feelings. As an aside, I have not sold any ancient lamps yet to realize this about myself.

Most people attack the person who intellectualizes the topics like 'Love' by saying, "So you don’t believe in it?" or "does this mean that you are a romantic or a pragmatist?" and so on and so forth. I tend to intellectualize even this reaction of the readers as follows: In life everything is not black and white and we find it hard to see a situation in an unpolarized manner. It seems like we need dualism to complete the picture. Night and Day , Black and White, Good and Evil, it seems like even the most intellectual amongst us seems uneasy in an amorphous definition-less holistic environment and we are tempted to draw lines to delineate and separate concepts. Why do we feel the need to do this? Why can we let things be? Do we need to put things in boxes and label them and stow them away. Will this classification of items in a strictly dualistic manner help us survive? Is that the motivation? Survival? I am aware of myself trying to do that. I restrain myself when I feel the urge. Here is a story from a Wild West movie that was first narrated to me by Rishi Sinha born April 27 (Aries) and my second year roommate in BITS Pilani Hostel. He went on to get his PHD in computer science from Southern California University. I hope I have not lost him in the madding crowds. He was someone who would engage me in these conversations. He did have some thoughts on the Maslow's Pyramid. More on that later. I wish you well wherever you are Rishi.

Once upon a time there was a sparrow. It lived in the Arctic region. As winter started approaching the sparrow decided to fly down to warmer climes. As it started migrating it felt so ecstatic and soared through the air catching a southern drift and sailing with it. But soon its wings became frozen and fatigued and it drifted slowly down to ground and landed on the soft snow. It sat there cussing and cursing how rotten its luck had turned out. It was very afraid that it would die there. Its thoughts were interrupted by a warm feeling as some cow dung feel on it head. More of it landed as the sparrow looked up to see a bovine dropping warm dung on it. Enraged at the cow the sparrow started yelling. But as the cow started moving away the sparrow started feeling better. The warm dung thawed its wings and the blood rushed to it wings and legs and it flapped its wings in joy. Now it could complete its migration in time to reach warmer climes. It joy was short lived as a cat sprang out of the bushes which investigated the source of the sound and gobbled up the sparrow.

Moral: Everyone who shits on you is not your enemy. Everyone who pulls you out of the shit is not your friend. And if you know you are in a warm pile of shit which makes you feel comfortable keep your mouth shut. (The language is befitting a Wild-West movie...)

I hope the story was illuminating as it was witty. Let us not digress.

So it seems like we humans need to take a stand. For or against communism. For or against Iraq war. For or against Global warming....etc., why can’t we accept communism to coexist with all other forms of government? Why cant we adapt it and develop on it and merge it with other forms of government and make a new one that is more suitable and equitable to all citizens. Another question for the reader is, ' the ones who don’t wish to see the world as a polarized dualistic one ...are they the arm-chair psychologists or no-good Utopians or passivists who don’t even believe in themselves. Looks like I am opening yet another can of worms. Just ruminate. Don’t respond.

There was a book by Chinua Chibi about the struggle for freedom in South-Africa. I fail to recall the book name which is probably Cry My Beloved. But in the book a white journalist who is writing supporting liberation and against White oppression of the Black people get robbed and murdered in his house. The irony being, that he was killed by Black kids in the ghettos: the very people he was writing to save. The author ends the book saying "Not all White people are bad and not all Black people are good". Enough said.

I guess all of us feel the urge to crucify the person who intellectualizes the concepts because we need to see things in black and white and the process of intellectualizing the concepts tends to break down this belief system and what happens when the life-sustaining belief system breaks down is that we panic and we release a tirade on the person who says something like "a human foetus is just a well adapted parasite". 'How can you say something so inhuman and insensitive'

I know a first year professor of medicine who talks about the foetus as a sophisticated parasite. What he was trying to do was to break down the belief system that and let the young doctors understand that treating the human body dispassionately is an essential aspect of the profession. We can pick a lot of topics like this one, Marriage being another.

Can multiple opinions coexist? Can we reach a state of mind where we have no opinions? Some people say 'I have no opinion' or 'no comment' when actually they are suppressing their comments. But is it possible that we can reach a state where we have no comment on subjects like Abortion which seems to be a controversial election make-or-break topic in the USA.

Well, plenty of concepts here for the unwitting reader who stumbled upon my blog site. Hope you enjoyed reading and hope I made you introspect. Until we meet again...take care!