To do or not to do, that is not the question!

It is awful how these philosophers not only make their lives miserable, but that of the readers too! People who are not mentally strong should avoid reading Albert Camus.

Just laid down “The Myth Of Sisyphus”. Camus sets in action by laying down a proposal: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
All the rest – whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories – comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer [the questions of suicide].”


The nucleus of Existentialism is that there is no point or reason of our existence. So if there is no rationale behind our existence then why should we go on living? But this is not the question or the subsequent answer. If this was so then all existentialist would have killed themselves.

We try to give the world a social, intellectual, philosophical and religious meaning. The stage is set for your existence. Rise, transport yourself to office. 10 hours of office work or at the factory, breakfast, lunch, snacks, tea or coffee, dinner, sleep, rise and again transport to office…. Monday, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday. The same rhythm, the same path followed day after day, month after month and year after year. Then one day you ask “why?”

Through this book, Camus calls our existential condition, absurd. On one hand the world is erratic and chaotic. Life comes and goes. Ideas are proven to be true and then false. One belief is as good as another. Our moods too are persistently altering. Camus on the other hand proposes our invariable efforts to obtain a meaning from meaninglessness. And this he says is absurd.
Camus surveys some probable responses. First he scrutinizes a religious answer and argues that the religious leap of faith is unnecessary. This is an escape from the fact of life’s absurdity, a “philosophical suicide”, as he puts it. Next he looks at the opening question of the essay, what about suicide as a response to the absurd? He concludes that this too is an unnecessary escape from the reality of life’s absurdity. He points out that a life without meaning does not necessarily lead to the fact that life is not worth living:
“People have played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a meaning to life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living. In truth, there is no necessary common measure between these two judgments.”
As Camus goes through the possible responses to this feeling of the absurd, it becomes evident that he has directly envisaged this absurdity and has spent much of his life struggling with it.

He covers just about every existential thought I’ve had and many more. Only a man who has drowned himself in existential questioning can come up with such delicate and significant philosophical points. For example he notes that philosophers like
Chestov and Kierkegaard go to great lengths to show the limits of reason and man’s helplessness in the face of life’s absurdity. This, they say, is why man must take a leap of faith and turn to God. But if this leap of faith is in fact a solution to life’s absurdity then the absurdity never existed in the first place which means the need they described for a leap of faith did not exist either. I doubt I could have ever come up with such an insight on my own.

However in the end I was not completely obligated by Camus wrapping up the book. His claim that a philosophical life is a constant struggle sounded true, but I was not able to understand the historical and literary examples he used to illustrate this “life in revolt”. I did not see the horror in the "philosophical suicide" that he attributes to religious philosophers. I have worn out plenty of philosophies on life and will probably continue to plow through many more. I have seen that a sixth sense or experience can solve an existential dilemma as well as, or even better than, the clearest thinking.

I am not a true philosopher, but the reasons I would avoid suicide would be my family, certain moments of inspiration, my freedom from being a corporate slave, my accumulated interests in music, movies and books, the choice of not choosing a choice and my consciousness of being conscious of my consciousness…….And the fact remains that like all men, I too will cling on to life. It after all happens only once. I can only experience it once! In any case we all will die eventually. So why hurry up. Let’s try and enjoy our absurdities!

Economics and Politicians

Whenever you see a politician conversing about economics and economy, you should know that you are in trouble. You can be sure that some awful decision is going to take place. Providentially for us, their nosy attitudes more often than not have a sluggish, gnawing outcome on the economy. But sometimes our rulers somehow announce some monstrous decision that not only takes them down, but the whole country with them.

History has a funny way of showing our great leaders’ past deeds which on hindsight amuses us little and leaves us sour, morose and peevish with them.

Roman Emperor Diocletian
Around 301 AD the Roman Emperor Diocletian issued a circular that selling food above the predetermined price or receiving wages above a prearranged amount invited the
death penalty. It was a catastrophe decision. Sellers withdrew their goods, unwilling to sell at the fixed price. They were also afraid of being accused falsely for selling above the maximum price and thus invite death. The workers vanished or sat around idly, doing nothing. In due course the circular was ignored and was scorned and ridiculed. It lowered the prestige and authority of the Empire.

King John of England
King John of England decided to try his hands in economics. Normally we are used to experiencing a tax policy which taxes the weak and provides relief to the strong and
powerful. Our King decided to try the opposite. He ordered the Knights to pay a heavy tax. The result was that thousands of these Knights attempted to kill him. Though he signed the Magna Carta in 1215, [Magna Carta was the first document forced upon him by a group of his subjects (the barons) in an attempt to limit his powers by law and protect their privileges.] which brought him some time, but after he lost his treasure while retreating from the French invasion, he went crazy and died.

Gaykhatu - fifth ruler in Iran
Gaykhatu (died 1295) was the fifth ruler in Iran. He reigned from 1291 to 1295. During his time in power, Gaykhatu was illustriously depraved and was addicted to wine, women, and sodomy. In 1294, Gaykhatu wanted to restock his coffers emptied by royal lavishness and a great cattle plague which devastated his subjects’ livestock. In response, his vizier Ahmed al-Khalidi proposed the introduction of a recent Chinese invention called Chao (paper money). Gaykhatu agreed and called for Kublai
Khan's ambassador Bolad in Tabriz. After the ambassador showed how the system worked, Gaykhatu printed banknotes which replicated the Chinese ones so closely that they even had Chinese words printed on them. The Muslim confession of faith was printed on the banknotes as a pacifier to local sentiment.
The plan was to get his subjects to use only paper money, and allow Gaykhatu to control the treasury. The experiment was a complete failure, as the people and merchants refused to accept the banknotes. He also did not fuss too much with technical details like convertibility and capital controls. Soon riots broke out, and economic activities languished. Gaykhatu had no choice but to withdraw the use of paper money.
He was deposed and assassinated shortly after that, strangled by a bowstring so as to avoid bloodshed.

Ming Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty in China assumed a strategy of importing and buying swords from the Japanese. Their objective was to deprive the Japanese of their swords. The Japanese
were occupying some islands and the Ming dynasty wanted to buy off the weapons from them. The Japanese were overjoyed and adopted the maxim – Buy all you can, we will make more! Disastrous decision by the Ming Dynasty.

Czar Alexander III & Nicholas II
The railroad technology advanced swiftly during 1880. Czar Alexander III took massive
foreign loans and started construction of the 5,000 mile Trans-Siberian Railway (the largest venture since the Great Pyramids of Giza). By the time the corruption ridden project was over in 1904, Nicholas II the son of Alexander III (who died in a train accident) became technically bankrupt. Wars and revolts infected the Empire. Instead
of carrying commercial and trade goods, the new railway was carrying political prisoners, soldiers and supplies for them. Russia rolled over in debts. The banking system was doomed. The economy became so weak that the country did not survive the coming war. Nicholas was executed on 16th July 1918.

Mengistu
Ethiopia had a crop failure around 1984. The country was then under the Marxist Junta called the ‘Derg’. The Junta controlled the Government. The Junta chairman, Mengistu borrowed a ‘brilliant idea’ from Stalin. Under this plan the scattered rural
population of Ethiopia would be gathered together in modernized villages with all the latest civic infrastructure and amenities. Villagers did not realize that these were the ideal utopian villages, so they had to be sent there at gunpoint for their own good. Unfortunately, the expected increases in agricultural production never materialized and millions starved. The country descended into a permanent state of civil war, which only ended in 1990 after the Soviet Union stopped supplying the Derg. Mengistu fled to Zimbabwe where he became an important advisor to that nation's rulers.

Mikhail Gorbachev
Great Leader! He announced around 1991 that all existing 50 and 100 Ruble banknotes would no longer be legal tender. They could be exchanged for new notes and only in small quantities – and that too only for three days. The effect was catastrophe. This
decision deleted large share of the savings and accumulated capital of private citizens. He followed up this genius move by ordering that the police had the authority to search any place of business and to demand the records of any business at any time. The union's economic problems accelerated into a death spiral. Gorbachev resigned that year and on the next day the Supreme Soviet dissolved itself and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Power Corrupts – Absolutely!

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords, that where laws end, tyranny begins." - Lord Action in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton, 1887

All of us love power. All of us are prone to corruption. But it does not mean that absolute powerlessness may make you an angel. Nevertheless, it is charming, and alluring, to wield power over men and to excel before others, notwithstanding that power also has the capacity to completely ruin and destroy and has its own hazards.

Look at what you learnt in your History books. The books are full of rulers, leaders, bosses and generals and commanders who began well and ended shoddily. They all testified that they pursued and strived for power for the sake of good. Subsequently they became infatuated and got anesthetized by power. They began loving power for its own sake.
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Freedom Exist! . . . . Does It?

☼ If freedom exist, then it is restricted to the one distinctive act of choosing our profession. After this ALL FREEDOM is OVER!

You begin to study at the University. You try to become a doctor, engineer, salesman, management guy, lawyer, government worker or something…..anything.

You are compelled to participate in an exceptionally stiff syllabus which ends with a progression of examinations. If you pass those examinations, you then receive a degree. Now you can pursue your profession. You think you have freedom once again. But as soon as you enter your professional life, you become a slave.

You are now dependent on success, money, your ambition, your hunger for fame, on whether or not people like you. You must submit yourself to go up. You must earn money; you must take part in the ruthless competition of castes, creed, colour, families, political parties, media, etc. But yes, you have one freedom – the freedom to become successful and well to do and to be hated by the unsuccessful or vice versa
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☼ When I was young and a student, I never realized or fully comprehended that I actually had luxury and had abundant time for myself. We studied a little, worked a little, didn’t waste much time and thought that we were diligent – and we barely were conscious of what we could do going forward or what we would do with our freedom.

After finishing our student life we start hunting for jobs – suddenly we receive a call from some authority – are given assignments, missions and designations. We then struggle to move on to higher levels, and out of the blue we are trapped in a network of duties and responsibilities that squeezes us the more we try to move inside it. The duties and responsibilities are small, but each of them has to be fulfilled and carried out at its proper hour. The day then seems to have more tasks than hours.

So from classrooms, office chambers, meeting rooms to the office restrooms, our official journeys have gobbled up the freedom that we once thought we possessed. The freedom to choose tasks, to study - disappeared.

Now I yearn for those days, and imagine that if ever I had such freedom again, I would fully enjoy its pleasures and possibilities.
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Knowledge & Wisdom

☼ We create gods – and struggle with them.
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☼ Suddenly I realized the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Wisdom is incommunicado. Communicating wisdom always sounds silly to others. You can find knowledge, live in a knowledgeable environment, teach and communicate knowledge – but not wisdom
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☼ We are all afraid of death. We are all afraid to die. We tremble inside when we see the flowers droop and wither away. We shudder when we see the leaves fall. In our hearts we know that we too will wither away. We know that our life here is momentary. We know we too will disappear. So we start creating images and devise thoughts and philosophies. We want to retrieve something from death, something that will last longer than us.
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☼ Everything in this world comes in a dual format. Up or down, left or right, right or wrong, high or low, man or woman, drifter or steady, thinker or feeler – We cannot do or have both at the same time. We cannot breathe in and breathe out at the same time. We cannot be a man as well as a woman. We cannot experience freedom as well as discipline. We cannot combine instinct and mind. It is always one or the other. But it is true that the one thing is as important and desirable as the other. One cannot do without the other
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Spiritual access

☼ It looks as if man has taken upon himself a significant responsibility of controlling the access of gods to other men.

Visiting the Siddhivinayak Temple on a Tuesday, where I am told more than 2 lacs devotees throng the site, I saw separate queues for the affluent and the influencers of society. They were receiving privileged treatment by the Temple authorities. There was no single queue. People were waiting in a long serpentine queue to get darshan.

Afterwards I had an opportunity of speaking to one of the rich and an influencer of society. He gave me to understand that he carried a platinum card. For me this meant that there were others with gold and silver cards! So people with plat, gold and silver cards had express access to gods!

I wonder what the gods must be thinking. Or perhaps they might not be thinking at all. It might be that they have abandoned the general human race and have catered only to those with plat, gold or silver cards.

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☼ Can we get some consolation or do we need some tranquilizers? From time to time the company of a woman may help, now and then maybe a good friend. Some other times music or a movie may help along the way. Then a time will come when all these will no longer offer pleasure. Then one may take up drinking. Very soon one may even come out of this. Thinking, talking, reading, living, feeling and other activities may not provide the contentment that we seek to see us through life. What do we do?

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☼ None of us are less ignorant than the other. But I have attempted to live my life as a seeker. I have questioned stars, books, established thoughts, religion, life, culture and whatever my inner cells have murmured to me. The story of my life is not pleasant. It is neither charming nor mellow like those stories which are invented and people believe in them. My life has been stroked with nonsense, stupidity, pandemonium, and imaginations – like the lives of all men who have discontinued deceiving themselves

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☼ A long time back, somebody asked me why I was growing a moustache. I replied that I was feeling helpless and seem to have no goal in life.

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☼ I live in my dream. That is what you think. Probably you are right.

I live in my dream. I play with them. I construct in them. Whether I can renovate the world someday, remains to be seen, but within myself, I give a face-lift to my dreams each day. But no dreams last forever. Each dream is trailed by another dream. I don’t cling on to any particular one.

Other people live in dreams too – but not in their own.

And that’s the difference.
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Thought Traveller

☼ Some become conscious very early in their life that they are destined to make life more worthwhile. Others only perceive. People make a world of their own. They have an asylum, a heaven and a hell. They imagine no one can take this away from them. There is melody in their minds. They croon silently. They strive to take custody off all their strengths and emotions. They struggle to control the unexpected, the evil and their sadness.
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☼ People who are young try to experience all the pleasures of life. But along with pleasures, sorrows too stroke their lives. They merely think of themselves. They think all their concepts, beliefs and opinions are significant. Many come out of this trance while growing up. Those who find that their desires have not been rewarded, end their lives.
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☼ The instant a man starts to think too much, he stops rejoicing when he wakes up in the morning. He stops enjoying, eating and drinking. He does not find much satisfaction in them. He ceases to take things for granted. He stops seeking and hoping for moments of real life. He becomes very conscious of time and starts thinking on the meaning and purpose of everything. Sometimes he feels liberated, and life seems so intricate, challenging and repressive. Perhaps this is a consequence of traveling very far in thought and philosophy? Can we achieve happiness through suffering, pain and sorrow?
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Corporate Speculative Decision

Here is a new word. I call it Corporate Speculative Decision. This is how the story goes.

Our economy keeps changing. But certain things don’t seem to alter:

1. There is still this situation of unsold inventories (which we call stock and which are conveniently kept in the warehouses).

2. There is unemployment.

3. There is this unused capacity that production facilities offer.

This mechanism will persist and we will never be able to move in that direction where we can eradicate these issues. The past has been a good alibi.




The guy who owns the stocks declines to sell at the market price hoping that he can acquire a better and higher price at a later date.

The guy who is unemployed refuses to change his occupation, his residence and work with lower pay because he thinks he can get a better job with higher pay in the same place that he resides and in the same industry that he prefers.

Meanwhile the guy who has created an unused capacity atmosphere has assumed that the market will not ask for other goods than those that these plants can manufacture.

So? So the unused capacity, the piling of excessive inventories and the unemployment are nothing but mere, pure Corporate Speculative Decisions

So much for CSD!