Baz Luhrmann, the Australian moviemaker who gave DiCaprio his first major breakthrough in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet puts it very succinctly as he mouthed Mary Schmich's essay "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" as a thought provoking song aptly titled "Everybody's free to wear sunscreen" to never read beauty magazines for they only make you feel ugly!
(Do listen to this song if you can, it makes a lot of sense! And read the article if you don't follow the accent here!)
Here is the video for the song! And here is the link to watch it on Youtube, if you want to watch it there!
Well, extrapolate that to our discussion: every religion, religious book, self-help book that you might read preaches that their way, their approach to life is the right way, when there is nothing of that sort! We all choose our destinies of our own free will! One can bring the cattle to hay, but one can't chew the cud for them! Similarly, there are a million right paths, it is for us to choose the one that feels right for us and walk on it! We have been given the grand power as one may call it to compare and contrast; it is imperative that we make use of it in first knowing all the paths, comparing the pros and cons of each and choosing the one that suit us the best! Remembering that what might work for one may not necessarily do so for the other!
Which brings me to another similar point: it is inherent human nature to act as guides, as leaders, (as the eternal sunshine illuminating the path for others), to help others find the "bliss" that we have supposedly attained! It is here that we impose our thoughts, and our way of life on others; or to put it more poignantly we impose our religion on others! Convinced that our way of life is the right one and that others not adhering to it are heretics who need to be brought back (through sermons, legislation or force) into the realm of our conceived notion of reality, we act the way we do! And here is where we blur the distinction between faith and religion, assuming that religion or way of living supersedes faith or belief in the Almighty!
It is our innate self-righteousness that sows the seeds of strife in the first place!
Every religion preaches the gospel of love thy neighbor, but how many of us actually follow it? (in the sense that it is meant, of course!) We end up creating these innumerable walls around ourselves for no known reason, and end up worrying our days to the end that someday these walls might collapse; always forgetting the fact that we have always existed even before these walls were made in the first place!
We all tend to consider ourselves better than others in whatever spans the canvas of human activity!
Although we might ostentatiously claim that all men are born equal, the inherent feeling that some men are more equal than others is a universal phenomenon!
It is an inherent flaw in human beings to give a human face to God! Aren't we pompous in assuming that, the creator of all beings has a human form? For that matter, if we go by our beliefs that God created the entire physical world;
1.Are we to assume that if God has to have a human form, only the inhabitants of earth fall in his domain; that there is no possibility of life beyond the confines of our little planet?
2.Or that, if we indeed do accept that there is life beyond this planet, that we humans are the supreme creations of the Almighty and hence it is only natural that we give him a human face in the first place?
Problem of the Week!
Here is an interesting one that came to my mind a few days back!
Consider a filthy rich millionaire starts a family and has a son (or daughter, for that matter!)! Ever since childhood this boy is kept unaware of his father's fortunes! He pretends to be a blue-collared everyday man earning just about to maintain a family. The boy is brought up in an average working class neighborhood like any other ordinary boy, with very limited allowances and luxuries, as can be afforded in everyday sense, in that income bracket! The kid is put through the same tests and trials of everyday life! He is sent off to a boarding school where he makes it through on his merit and not riding his father's pocketbook! He clears school, gets into a prestigious college again, on his merit! 26 years since his birth, the kid returns home a strapping lad, educated, qualified and successful, a man of his own making!
And it is now that his father breaks the news to him that he is, after all, rich as they come and gives him his due share of inheritance!
Now, the questions:
1.What would be the consequence of this scenario?
2.What would be the reaction of the son in this scenario? Would he be (a) happy and grateful, (b) angry and betrayed?
3.What would be the reaction of the father be to the reaction of his son?
4.Would there be a difference had it been a daughter in this case and not a son?
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