Belief system

There. Just once a while you come up with a sequel to one of your blogs. Maybe a corollary, more so.

No, its not about the belief that 'you believe in what you've to do and half your job's done' type of belief. But its a rather funny type of belief that has kinda been thrust upon us. What do I call it? Lets see if the blog suggests some idea toward the end.

While there are beliefs that you abide by, there are some that are mere societal 'laws', if I may even say so. These laws are dumped on to you and easily, some 97% of the populace blindly follows it. While a section of people get offended when someone eats cows or pigs (which is further complicated by adding another entity that has ruined the world - caste, but lets not get there today), the same people refuse to believe that by not eating meat, they are just living in a false assumption of not killing a living being. The vegetarian section quite similarly consumes all parts of the shoot and the root, quite similar to a non vegetarian consuming legs, breast or liver. You need to survive, you need to eat. Period. But no, one is made to believe that the other is wrong. Some harmony can't exist. Faces have to be made. Disgust has to be expressed. Why? Because we have freedom to do so. Freedom or the lack of it, which curtails the very essence of it, when there is someone waiting to express their opinion on what you want to feed yourself. "Oh, you are a Brahmin, how can you eat beef" remains the most absurd, hilarious and foolish statement that is of a typical classic blind belief system.

The other day I was sitting at a temple by myself. It was a semi rural area on the outskirts of the city. Being an atheist, or, rather, after converting myself into one, I went to the temple only because that was the only place available to sit down in the swelter. I am a converted atheist, so I know the whole deal with footwear and temples. Yet, succumbing to the societal forced norms, I don't act very cranky and mess with the system that way. If at all I enter a temple, I take out my footwear. Mind you, this might seem normal to you till you start questioning it. Only once you question do you see the most obvious reasoning, but let's just leave it at that. So I was sitting by the side of the inner chamber, which was the wall facing the road. It was quite dusty and I wasn't planning on entering the sacred temple. So I chose to leave my footwear on. It was about 30 minutes later that I was questioned by a passer by, a younger guy (perhaps). "How can you leave your footwear on when you are sitting in the temple?" It was a question that was not posed to anticipate a reply. It was a question that came out of anguish. How can a person not take care of the footwear when he's in the temple premises.

So all the god believing people have a set belief that the god they worship is only in the temple. What makes these people roam around in footwear wherever they go? Don't they contradict the saying that god's everywhere? Again, if god's everywhere, is he not in the footwear? Is he not in the mind of the person who designed the footwear some thousands of years back? Is he not in the mind of the person who 'harms' religious animals? Is he only in the mind of the person who is allowed to kill poor mute plants? Isn't this all a little too much imposed by the society rather than anything else? Much like caste, religion and the other bull crap that is plain disgusting?

Of existence

Hello 2019. Yeah, well, it's been a little over 60 days, but what the heck.

I was thinking off late that when people say something stopped happening or they stopped working toward something, did they really mean to do it? There is also the oft used - 'Life happened'. Which is a little cliched. Because if you gave up on what you wanted to do to live life, it kinda contradicts the whole thing of living.

Seriously, what is it that happens. Yes, we all get busy, we all tend to get out of touch with friends - definitely wanes from what it would have been earlier - in the good times. But the one thing that I think must stay with a person is the fire that was ignited at some point of time in life. Today, in my current state of mind, I'd strongly assert that age is a number. Earlier, maybe some 4-5 years back, it was an escape route. Once you see things happening to you when the time is right, the term age just dissolves itself into time. Its one thing if it makes one wiser with experience. But then there are the others too, which makes you think why such dumb fucks are still favoured by the universe and why they are still kept alive :P.

Anyways, coming back to the point (if there was any), life does happen. Life throws responsibilities, life throws unanticipated deaths, life throws unplanned pregnancies, life throws uncalled for bankruptcy and so on. This might seem like a veil of unnecessary things just waiting to pounce on you as you grow older and claim that 'there is no time'. But yeah, life can't be as carefree as it was in college. Life has to happen. But how much are you capable of adapting with it. How many of us are willing to take huge risks in career post 30? How many of us are happily single and still have an active profile on dating apps post 35? How many of us have a physique and the stamina that can put a 20 year old to shame, at 40? How many of us can become style icons at 45? How many of us taste success in what we want at 50? Notice the 5 year gap? It wasn't accidental.

Life happens, when you make it happen. By alienating yourself from what you want, by giving into peer or family pressure, by being bogged down by additional responsibilities, by assuming that its too late now is not life. Its existence. No wonder then, that people experience mid life crisis when they are 30. Or is it existential crisis? Wait, should it happen only at 30? Wasn't age a number?