Incoherent ramblings about Human life and relationships
I hear people saying 'She is intelligent', 'He is selfish', 'They are dumb'. I myself tend to categorize and stereotype people based on culture, race, nationality etc. But something bothers me when I do that.
I cant help wondering when I observe different people of the world, totally different from each other in race, lifestyle, food habits, language that they are all the same within. If you leave out people's characteristics like race, language, culture, lifestyle and just see their raw emotions like anger, happiness, pain etc. you would find how strikingly similar they are. It is like the same wheat that goes into making roti, tortilla, bread, cereals and whatnot. You could categorize food into proteins, carbs, minerals, vitamins too. Or you could categorize them as healthy or unhealthy. Organic and Inorganic.
Just like foods you can easily sort people into a few categories. But at the same time different social conditions, geography, historical happenings have played a role in making every one of them unique. They are not just what they are individually, but they are what they interact with each second of their life. Every moment in their life plays a part in their evolution. Every other person that they interact with make a difference to their individuality which keeps changing every moment of their life.
In the field of computer science random number generation is considered as a hard problem by researchers. Anyone would wonder why generating random number is so difficult, but machines are not like humans. They are mechanical ultimately and they are just dumb however complex you make them. Human beings are incredibly random and excitingly unpredictable. The so called 'seed' (simplest is timestamp in computers) to randomize human life is provided by nature in infinite utterly unpredictable ways. So next time you think your iPhone is cool, think again. You are cooler than anything else and that too without any effort from you. You were born cool !
So in this scenario, how could you say that someone is beautiful, intelligent, dumb or lazy. Anyone of that characteristics might change any moment. But this is the same trait which makes people wonderfully interesting and this is what makes life worth living. But this is the same human fraility which makes people so unpredictable, causes so many sufferings and insecurity.
Why did hitler cause the holocaust? What caused him to hate jews? Did he ever love anyone whole heartedly? How many people loved him unconditionally? What was he like as a person, if he was not the Fuhrer? Can we call him outright a 'bad' person? What about Mahathma Gandhi? Was he as good a person in all walks of his life or was he just a good leader? Can we just call him a 'good' person. What may be good for one might be bad for another. Didn't the British loathe Gandhi?
I will never have answers to these questions. I dont expect to. All I promise to myself now is that I will never ever judge a person. Not that I donot trust them or I want to give them a second chance, but simply because judging a person is a waste of time. A person is what he/she is at that moment. I might be a different person tomorrow when I read this again, but then I am what I am at a particular moment in my life and the rest is all, as they say, history.
If at all there ever were few words which conveyed great meaning, then these are those immortal words. 'Change alone is unchanging' - Heraclitus.
I cant help wondering when I observe different people of the world, totally different from each other in race, lifestyle, food habits, language that they are all the same within. If you leave out people's characteristics like race, language, culture, lifestyle and just see their raw emotions like anger, happiness, pain etc. you would find how strikingly similar they are. It is like the same wheat that goes into making roti, tortilla, bread, cereals and whatnot. You could categorize food into proteins, carbs, minerals, vitamins too. Or you could categorize them as healthy or unhealthy. Organic and Inorganic.
Just like foods you can easily sort people into a few categories. But at the same time different social conditions, geography, historical happenings have played a role in making every one of them unique. They are not just what they are individually, but they are what they interact with each second of their life. Every moment in their life plays a part in their evolution. Every other person that they interact with make a difference to their individuality which keeps changing every moment of their life.
In the field of computer science random number generation is considered as a hard problem by researchers. Anyone would wonder why generating random number is so difficult, but machines are not like humans. They are mechanical ultimately and they are just dumb however complex you make them. Human beings are incredibly random and excitingly unpredictable. The so called 'seed' (simplest is timestamp in computers) to randomize human life is provided by nature in infinite utterly unpredictable ways. So next time you think your iPhone is cool, think again. You are cooler than anything else and that too without any effort from you. You were born cool !
So in this scenario, how could you say that someone is beautiful, intelligent, dumb or lazy. Anyone of that characteristics might change any moment. But this is the same trait which makes people wonderfully interesting and this is what makes life worth living. But this is the same human fraility which makes people so unpredictable, causes so many sufferings and insecurity.
Why did hitler cause the holocaust? What caused him to hate jews? Did he ever love anyone whole heartedly? How many people loved him unconditionally? What was he like as a person, if he was not the Fuhrer? Can we call him outright a 'bad' person? What about Mahathma Gandhi? Was he as good a person in all walks of his life or was he just a good leader? Can we just call him a 'good' person. What may be good for one might be bad for another. Didn't the British loathe Gandhi?
I will never have answers to these questions. I dont expect to. All I promise to myself now is that I will never ever judge a person. Not that I donot trust them or I want to give them a second chance, but simply because judging a person is a waste of time. A person is what he/she is at that moment. I might be a different person tomorrow when I read this again, but then I am what I am at a particular moment in my life and the rest is all, as they say, history.
If at all there ever were few words which conveyed great meaning, then these are those immortal words. 'Change alone is unchanging' - Heraclitus.
posted by theguywhothinkstoomuch at
10:04 AM
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