Philosophy 101: The new national pastime

I return to blogging after more than four months break and lot happened in the time I did not blog and seriously I had a lot of topics to have a take on. A team with Sreesanth in it won the world cup despite Ian Chappel’s brilliant pieces to win the world cup for Aussies even before it started, Poonam Pandey did not keep her promise, Osama was killed in the greatest country on earth, Facebook patriots sent me cause invites to click and support movements by Anna Hazare and Ramdev and obviously Rahul Gandhi, naam hi kafi hai. So what really kept me away for all these days? The reason is not difficult to guess, a job which sucks and leaves your mind so much cluttered that you may lose a truck in it. But I will not go in details of that here as those things are meant for Facebook walls to gain some sympathy. And anyway it’s not that bad, though I do not like what I do, this was probably best I could have done with my life, given that I am no IITian and moreover I did not spend my college life locking myself in a room and reading all those geeky stuff. Add to that the salary is high enough to make some people jealous.

Before I deviate further let me come to the point why I started this. I don’t want to deviate further as I told you my mind is cluttered and currently I can’t think straight. Oh wait, I did not mean that, I meant my thinking is not very clear and precise at this moment, I still think straight though. In the past era philosophy was left for leaders, thinkers, poets, politicians and people who did not get laid. But all of a sudden philosophy has quickly and subtly become a new national craze in the nation which till now was obsessed with cricket, movies and some shitty saas-bahu serials. As a matter of proof, take the following tests.

1. Goto your Facebook wall and see the updates, if you do not see couple of motivational quotes by retards and clicked like by bigger retards, I respect you.

2. Go to a book stall and try finding good fiction (this does not include CB’s books) to read, it will be like finding a needle in a haystack of all Deepak Chopras, Robin Sharmas and Shiv Kheras stuffs .

3.On top of this blog click next blog around 3 times, if you do not get to a blog which talks about life, relationships, dealing with change etc. lady luck is sitting by your side and now is right time for you to buy a lottery ticket.

4.Join twitter, follow some obscure folks, you know the rest.

5.Pick up your phone and call a few friends and ask for some advice.

6.Sign into google talk and read status and you will be confused if it is actually Google gyaan.

Obviously when I talk of philosophy I do not talk about originality in it. I know at some time you may have read some status message and felt how come this guy/gal who struggled to pass in English in school is suddenly writing lines like Wordswoth or John Keats. Answer is obvious.

Now let’s come to the point. So why did I call this philosophy 101. So did you think I was going to give you some gyaan on how to be philosophical? Well that was a trick, and if you fell for it, this is the time you get lost from here. I was fine as long as philosophies was there on Facebook, for I could simply hide such people for timeline, Twitter was even better, I can unfollow, I could have switched off the TV, I could have chosen not to read stuff. But then this rage spread like wild fire and people seem to bring these on right into your face. There seem to be this issue with most people; they seem to believe that they always have an audience. They talk in quote and prose and often modify quotes from eminent leaders. These people seem to be ashamed of sounding practical. Let’s dissect the practicality of couple of these philosophies and people who do that.

All of us have some friends whose existence in our lives is like our orkut accounts, something which we enjoyed some time back, but have outgrown but still have it. On my last visit to my hometown I met one of those and we caught up on some old times. I realized he taught Mathematics in some school and ultimately I told him about my job and how demanding it was. So now he switched on “You know, one should not work for money. There is more to life than money; your job should have some meaning attached to it. I think one should just do what one loves”. So precisely he chose to become a teacher as he loved teaching. A little strange, that he gave numerous Engineering entrance tests for 2 years, before doing a B.Sc in Mathematics, then sat for numerous Bank P.O exams, took UPSC once, tried to bell the CAT before going to do what he loved. I replied “But didn’t you love watching porn too, why did you not become a porn-star, I guess you would have got a higher salary and may have loved the job more, or maybe even a CD shop where you could have given expert opinion also.” He laughed out unable to see the sarcasm. But the point is, what was the point in philosophizing his job so much, obviously it was not his job description, since he teaches Maths, and there was no audience around to listen to his brilliant and spiritually enlightening speech. But then that is how it works. Gone are the days, when if you felt low a friend will join you and accompany you to a restaurant or pub to make you feel better. No sir, he will first throw in a few Martin Luther Kings, Abraham Lincons, Mahatma Gandhis, Deepak Chopras in your face and then finally start ranting about his life, to prove his/her life outsucks yours.

The glorification of failure seems to be the cornerstone of many of these amateur philosophers. I have always maintained that girls are allowed to be a bit stupid, but then some of them seem to abuse this privilege. There is this friend of mine, who writes numerous written exams for various jobs and keeps blowing them up. And then on each of her result day for some reason she used to give me a call. Initially I used to be sympathetic but then it turned irritating, for none of her discussions were practical self-assessment, they were just for glorifying failure. So instead of working out what is going wrong what she would do is buy herself another ‘chicken soup for some stupid soul’ and come up with motivational lines like ‘If you want to succeed double your failure rate’ or her favorite ‘Failure is a stepping stone to success’. Seriously, how many stepping stones do you want, or are you planning to build a stone mansion. Finally, I let go off my hidden agenda (isn’t it obvious) and stopped taking her calls and blocked her from google talk. Last I heard of her was the day when CAT results came out and with it a new philosophy which stated ‘you don’t need a exam result to judge yourself. Even Albert Einstein was thrown out of school’. And that was it, my admiration of Einstein and her comparing herself with the great man sealed it. I am sure she would come up with something like ‘laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone’ when someone mentions me in a conversation with her.

And just to further prove my example I just opened the Facebook app for android, which unfortunately does not give me option for hiding people from timeline, here are the few I see (In case it was your status, let me offer my apologies first)

1.Life is confusing, Sumtyms u donno, Whether u shld b smiling or be worried

2.A group of Donkeys led by a lion can defeat a group of Lions led by a Donkey....Leadership makes the real difference

3.Life is not so simple...are yaar to y dnt u make it simple...?

Now, seriously if only someone can give me a penny each time the word life appears on my timeline, I would have been richer by quite a bit. Some of you may argue if you have problems why you don’t remove them from friend list. In truth, this is not so simple, most of them are actually friends and totally likeable in many other ways, and this one irritating trait is not solid enough a reason to end friendship. 'Things are not plain black and white, sometimes they are grey'. (This is infectious, see I philosophized it too)

I don’t have much idea what has made it a rage. Was it the impact of social networks? Or was it suddenly realized that being intellectual is of primary importance? Was it the effect of shitloads of self help books available? Was it a result of overall depression and frustration which led people to try and philosophize their miserable lives? I have no idea and neither do intend to get idea.

The point is with so much of philosophical advice being constantly poured on you, it is but normal to get confused, depressed and frustrated once in a while. That is the time you need to find the counter of it to overcome it. So next time when your friend gives a philosophy you know where to look for overcoming him/her. If you don’t, go figure.