Life is interesting, isn’t it?
Just for fun, let’s be the spider looking at the web of life and take a look at the mesmerizing big picture. Its amazing how we are all part of this huge network of resources, skills, relationships and emotions. Each morning, you, I and every other moving creature gets up to play a part in this huge interconnected ‘grand system’ of seemingly independent ecological, biological, social, emotional, financial and economic systems. Each of us, unique in our own way, spend our lives in trying to become indispensable and the most important ‘link’ in the set-up we lovingly call life. Let's snoop into things for a while.
Consider my Dad, a scrupulous banker. Everyday, he goes into his office, checks financial dealings, passes cheques, grants loans, and safeguards and redistributes public money for the greater good of the public themselves. And for his services, he gets a small percentage of this public money to take home every month. Consider his client, the enterprising hotel manager. Mr. Manager buys veggies, cereals, fruits and drinks from the market; picks, mixes and matches parts of some of these, which in some very specific combinations would manage to excite our taste buds. For feeding the public, he takes as fees from the public themselves, certain fixed amounts which would go to buy toys for his kids and jewellery for his wife. Consider his customer, the profiteering stock broker. This guy channels ‘public’ money from one part of the system to another part and makes an amount of money proportionate to how well he manages to do that. Now, consider all of his investors, the software engineer, the jeweller, the social worker, the policeman as well as the drug dealer. All of these guys work or feed on some part of the general public system, process matter, information or some damn thing from the system and gain from the very same system in one of several forms. In other words, no matter what profession we pursue, no matter how much money we make, no matter who we cheat for a living, we will always remain ‘public servants’, serving the ‘public’ within the system in one of a hundred trillion ways. And our rewards are nothing but the position we get elevated to in the system itself ! Does this seem like random rambling ?
Corollary 1: Our fate is tied to the well-being or misery of our fellow brethren!!
Let’s look beyond the economic implications of the above statement. We are all, yes, all of us, hanging on one side of this powerful divine systemic pulley, one pulley for each of us, the other side being pulled down by the rest of the system. Our perceived well being is nothing but how well we buoy ourselves and go up by making sense of rules of the system and manipulate its working for our own benefit. Some creatures have a headstart, already half way up at birth. For others, it’s a long and hard journey upwards and sometimes, try as they might, they go no way but down. Some use force, break the rules of the game and put everyone in trouble; some move too fast and crash into the wheel; while still some put their feet on both sides and enjoy their stay ! But try as we might, simply and obviously, we, the living organisms on the earth, can never let go of the rope !! Got the point ? ( You have super-human intelligence if you didn’t :-)
In simple words, very few of us are different from the billions of trillions of crawling, flying, swimming and walking organisms inhabiting the earth who do nothing but eat, fuck and die. Ah! What the hell !! “Sorry to interrupt you; I am the author’s sub-conscious mind. Dude, I am going to make a mark in whatever I do. One day, I am going to be a rich, strong, powerful and influential CEO. I’ll have the world at my feet ! And unlike others, I’m not plain ambitious, I’ll work smart and hard and make sure my dreams come true !”
Hey ! I heard you. Yes you can and yes you will one day CEO be. But my point stands vindicated ! You will one day work on outsmarting regulatory mechanisms for consumable market commodities and take company profit to dizzying, unfathomable heights, setting new standards for marketing management and inventory stabilization. Huh? How are you very different from the roadside tea vendor..? He too works smart and buys tea from the cheapest ration shop halfway across town, smuggles it in the backside of the tourist bus, bribes the patrolling cop for a coveted spot outside the rail station, prices his tea depending on the number of competitors around, ensures that the tea brew is at the right temperature and of the right composition irrespective of the rate at which tea flows out from the kettle. And just like the CEO, albeit at a different level, doesn’t he make a hundred times more money than the beggar besides his stall ? Or moving from the lateral to the time scale, neglecting the possibility that you are an incarnation of Jesus Christ, how are you going to be different from the millions of people who lived and died before you ? From times immemorial, people have always tried to understand the laws of nature, we’re doing it too. Ten thousand years ago, people must have fought for pigs, farm lands and wooden spears; today we fight for oil, technology and world domination. You grand dad must have complained about how things were going from bad to worse and reminisced about the good old times. You are going to do it too !! We are all pawns in this unending game, patiently waiting to be promoted to be king, and though one day some of us do make that ‘mark’ we aim to, we still remain on the divine chessboard. No matter what, absolutely no matter what, the system is static, unchangeable, and immutable as ever. Meanwhile, the pulleys stay, laughing at the jokers tugging along on both sides.
Corollary 2: We are all the same in our quest to be different. (Thanks to XXX for bringing this to light)
Thought for today : Where is your place in this system ? What are going to be your moves on the chessboard ? In simple words, if you were to die today, what would you do to leave a ‘mark’ and make the universe remember your DNA ?
(This new blogger on the block loves to have a different take on everything from Sonia’s accent to Sania’s serve. His articles would frequently look at the ‘big picture’ of how ‘things’ work and the relationships between the self and the universe. Coming soon, Random Rambling: Part 2)
