Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a happy New Year. My blog resolution is to write atleast one post a week. Though the reason this year is the same as the previous years, writing is for self-gratification and to learn create a framework to express thoughts in a structured and a cohesive manner. Inability to do so in general is a bane.

Now the question is should I leave the post here and call it the first post for the first week or write something better (else) and put pressure on self to think something new for the next week.

Let me ask you something, which someone asked me sometime back, do we have any purpose as individuals or is everything collective?

My perspective on the same goes like this; the answer to the question depends on how you define yourself. Now if I define myself as an individual and see myself in isolation, then every purpose is individual and the greatest goal is nature/God. Every action that the individual would do would be to achieve the ultimate spiritual glory or self actualization. The way we define the world currently would be meaningless and the definition of progress wouldnot be expressed in terms of scientific or their material sub-structures but differently.

On the other hand if you see yourself as a subset of the collective then every action would be not directed inwards but outwards. The collective benefit would dictate the individual actions and not benefits accuring to the self. The definition of the collective also critical on what is seen as collective also dictates our actions and responsibilities. But remember what constitutes the collective is dictated by self and not any external influences or forces.

If one has to give an analogy to differentiate the two aspects. I clean my house, and throw the garbage outside the house, is an action of an individual. Against that if I see myself part of the community or neighbourhood, I would throw it outside that area so as not to be of any inconvenience to the neighbors. If we see ourselves not as 7th Main but as Indiranagar the responsibility becomes, it can expand to Bangalore to Karnataka to South India to India to Asia to the World. If I start with world as my collective, we would have a clean world. Though the fact remains our collective is not even the neighbourhood. But in plain theory this is how the collective works.

But I have not seen any example which proves this theory despite the fact we talk in collective and are governed as collective. This is due to the fact we see ourselves as individuals and others as collective. They need to behave like this or that so that I am comfortable.

Just one clarity here, individual does not mean feeding on others. Since I am concerned only about myself, I can murder someone or something similar for my benefit, I am above or not concerned about the law logic. It simply means my needs and motivations are internal and the manifestations different from that of the group.

I wish we can get our definitions right and live in peace for ever.

Next week: Who is more important, a soldier on whom the movie is made or the actor who plays it? Or, should actors (not artists, just actors) have any importance in the society, queestion with particular reference to Shah Rukh Khan?