Fumanism

When it comes to all-round equality, the term should be Humanism. Every soul deserves to be treated with respect and empathy, regardless of gender, race, skin color, sexual orientation, or active interest in the lives of the Kardashians. Couldn't get any simpler, right?

But we do not live in an ideal world, where every soul actually behaves that way. Humanity is plagued by an insidious disease, and the germs are power, prejudice, opinion, and judgement. People with prejudice strive for power, people with power force their opinion, and people with opinion easily pass judgement. Ever since someone discovered that their higher strength, loudness of voice, and lack of scruples could make people cower and become submissive, facts and empathy took a backseat. And the disease persists regardless of civilization having come a long way, though it has taken a milder form in certain pockets.

So the issue with humanism is that it cannot be taken up as a cause. It is too broad and too generic for anyone to process and be passionate about. Therefore, it has been broken down into focused causes, feminism being one of them (on parallel lines, the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' does not mean that all lives do not matter, it is simply a response to a sustained series of events that appears to target a specific race and is an apparent result of prejudice).

Regardless of the negative connotations attached to the term feminism, it exists because it has a valid reason to. We as a species are not far along enough to be thinking of everyone as a person. There are human beings, and there are women. Therein lies the rub. The word 'man' pervades everything - hu'man', wo'man', hu'man'ity, 'man'y etc. God is generally referred to as a 'He', and while citing any example, we have to remind ourselves to say 'he/she' in order to be politically correct. The female gender is somehow thought of as a different species.

So the problem with the gender 'equality' conversation is that it talks about bringing women to the table. What people seem to forget is that women have always been at the table. It's the egotistic men who have conveniently chosen to ignore them, and are now reluctantly yielding the floor when faced with pressure to do the right thing. The transition is neither natural, nor organic, but it will slowly become exactly that in a few generations. And there is something to be said about the women who are enablers of this prejudice - every mother who raises her boy and girl differently is complicit, regardless of whatever circumstance forced her mindset.

The right phrase to describe feminism should be gender neutrality, not gender equality. And that does not mean one gender needs to prove their mettle in everything that the other gender has. It simply means that gender should not be a point of discussion where it does not need to, full allowances made if it IS a point of discussion due to the nature of the responsibility, and there should be no condescension or prejudice at play in the process. Resilience, emotional strength, empathy, and integrity are qualities not specific to gender, yet somehow get processed differently based on which gender is displaying them. A confident man is a confident man, but a confident woman is brash, overbearing, and argumentative. That should not be the case. And there should be no differentiation because of things being approached or done differently by the genders.

Objectification is a major issue, and there are 2 aspects to this. The first is the overhyped concept of beauty - looks are something you are born with, not something you develop with dedication and perseverance. And complimenting someone solely on their looks just perpetuates the hype. The second is a result of the first - the concept of beauty has led to rampant objectification of women, and that is a tragedy. And somehow man, threatened by that beauty, appointed himself guardian (read 'owner') of that beauty, and started dictating what women should or should not do. While this exists to some extent in every culture, it is at ridiculous extremes in specific ones where the law itself refuses to recognize women as human beings. And even in the developed world, female body parts are used to sell electronics, automobiles, and anything and everything that is not in context. So how exactly is it a developed world? Beauty pageants still abound, and looks sell more than voices. Why?

Human biology is not helpful in the process - when equipped with higher strength, the protruding object will force its way into a recessed object without any thought to respect or empathy, when driven by prejudice, opinion, and utterly infuriating and quaint concepts of what is right and wrong. The right biological design would have ensured equal strength across both genders, and the reproductive organs designed not as provider and receiver.

The current biological design begs a simple question regarding the sexual crimes that happen against women - when you drive a car irresponsibly and hurt people, you lose your license. So if you are equipped with an appendage that you use to bring about pain and trauma, what right do you have to continue using it? Use it properly or be ready to lose it. Prison terms are not a major deterrent, and they are generally lax simply because the people passing judgement are men and female judges have their hands tied by law. All rape laws should be written and enforced with that thought process - 'responsible usage of your appendage'. It will serve as a great deterrent, because society will always have wretched beings who think with their appendage and respond more to fear than any rationale or imploration.

What we need is Fumanism - furious humanism, involving passion around all causes that are about neutrality and fairness. Given that women make 50% of the human population, feminism is a huge one that deserves immediate and continuing attention under the Fumanism umbrella. And it needs to be a combination of education and deterrence. Because there are and will always be elements that do not respond to positivity. They need to be painfully aware of the consequences of their destructive actions.


PS. I have to draw the line at the Kardashians. Sorry to judge, but I am human after all. I am not perfect, just awesome.

What Floats Your Boat?

You sit in a boat. It is filled with a bunch of positive items that are undeniably yours - happy memories, wondrous moments, encouraging words from teachers and mentors, appreciation from people around you, quiet, firm, and objective support of your family and friends, and the unconditional love of your child. These keep your boat buoyant. 

There is a hydrofoil attached to your boat. It is made up of numerous sources of inspiration, accomplishments, aspirations, creative achievements, learnings, structured thought, and crystal clear perspective. On certain days, the hydrofoil activates and your boat rises above water, speedily headed towards a bright horizon. 

You also have a container of fresh water, which has hope, optimism, and determination.

Your boat sits in the ocean. The ocean is made of negative elements – your fears, insecurities, self-doubts, stresses of daily life, betrayal by people you trusted whole-heartedly, unhappy memories, moments you would never want to recall, callous words spoken by close ones, expressions of disapproval from people you look up to, pain caused by the ones you loved because they did not return the kindness you extended them, the hurt you caused your loved ones due to your own insensitive actions, and the shock of dealing with bad outcomes resulting from your good intent. But that’s the ocean. You are in your boat, relaxed and comfortable, and you have fresh water. What’s to worry?

Well, there is a hole in your boat. Every day some water seeps into your boat. You spot it, scoop it up, and throw it out. And everything is fine again. You do this on a daily basis. If you don’t, there’s more water to clear out than you would like. Plus it’s salty water – you cannot drink it. Unfortunately, some people mistake that for fresh water, get used to drinking it, and forget the taste of fresh water. 

Occasionally the sun goes behind clouds, and your boat gets hit with storms. The storm scatters your positive items, and it requires some effort gathering them and getting back to your boat. Sometimes the storm is severe, and the boat flips over. But you have the strength to flip it over and the foresight to perform some repairs and expansions so that the boat is more stable go forward.

In your journey, you notice many overturned boats, with people in the process of flipping them over. You also see people who are underwater - some in their boats, others absent their boats. The ones with boats are occasionally able to get back to their boat and make it buoyant again. Some of the ones without boats appear to enjoy being underwater and show no interest in searching for their vessel; some occasionally climb onto your boat and start throwing your positive items out, resulting in your sinking boat and their unavoidable departure; and some appear to be in agony yet weighed down heavily by an invisible force that prevents them from responding to offered assistance, let alone trying to reach for the surface.

And then there are boats that are not even touching water. They are most rare, and something to aspire to.

Negativity appears to be hardwired in the human psyche – it is the emotional equivalent of entropy. Happiness requires conscious effort and housekeeping on a very regular basis, but is totally worth it.

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Positivity is an effort, negativity a breeze

Integrity a burden, disingenuousness a tease

No matter how hard life appears to squeeze

The engine of happiness must never ever seize

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So what floats your boat?

Piece of Mind

You have a house. It’s neither too big, nor too small. It sees mild summers and bitter winters. But you like your house. It is comfortable, it is cozy, and it is exactly what you need. However, you cannot ignore the feeling that something is lacking. So you start exploring that feeling to understand what is lacking.

You decide you need a nicer house in a nicer location. One day, you chance upon a brochure advertising a beach house in Florida. It appears perfect. It is a little beyond your means, but you are enamored. You must have that house. You go to Florida, take one look at the house and the location, and decide it is what you need. It looks very nice, appears to have sturdy construction, and not one thing seems out of place. Matter of fact, it is too perfect, if there could be such a thing. And it is priced low considering how perfect it is. You are too fascinated by it to notice these points – they are on the periphery of your consciousness, and are flicked away with effortless ease.

You buy the house and move in. For a little while, everything is great. Then one day all hell breaks loose. A hurricane hits the house. It blows away the roof, and tears down the walls. You sit on the wet sofa, wondering what just happened. But your sheer optimism forces you to ignore the obvious and focus on rebuilding the house. You put in your blood, sweat, and tears, and rebuild the house. There are a few tiles missing in the roof, but that’s fine. The location is great, after all.

For a little while, things are fine. Thanks to a few missing tiles in the roof, the floor gets a little wet when it rains.  But you clean it up and move on. Then the hurricane hits again. This time it wipes out the whole house. You are left wondering about your decision for the first time since you moved into the house. But you are not ready to give up. After all, the location is great! So you build the house again. There is a gaping hole left in the roof this time. You try to get the hole repaired, but that section of the roof is weak. The room gets flooded whenever it rains, and the floor takes a while to dry up.

Then the hurricane starts hitting the house twice a week. You are shell-shocked and left bewildered. You build and rebuild, but the foundation gets weaker after every hurricane, and the house is lacking a few essential components every time it comes back up. You are exhausted, but are stubbornly focused on rebuilding because after all, the location is great. When it rains, there is heavy water-logging. The floor never dries up. You wade from one room to the other.

Then one day a Category 5 hurricane hits the house. Not only does it blow away the house completely, it wipes out the foundation too. You move back to your original house, but are still left longing for your beach house. But now you are extremely cautious, and finally decide to do some exploring. While you are in Florida, you are hit by the hurricane again. Then you are confronted by the obvious – the location is great, but the weather is extremely unpredictable and highly destructive. Then you realize that it is not the weather which is the issue, it is the climate! You were too busy focused on your beyond-perfect beach house and awesome location to think about anything else.

Not only are you back to liking your original house, you also realize that you never really lacked anything. It is exactly what you always needed. What value is location if the house itself cannot stay up?

Peace of mind does not require happiness in addition, it IS happiness. 

Shamelessly borrowing this concept from Edgar Allan Poe: Happiness without peace of mind is simply happiness. Without peace of mind or the recognition that you have peace of mind, color becomes pallor, man becomes carcass, and home becomes catacomb...

Train of Wonder

Took my daughter to the zoo today, with the promise of face-painting and train ride, 2 activities which could very well have happened elsewhere. The only animal we saw was a starfish, taking shape in the form of a glitter tattoo on my daughter's hand. But the glimmer in her eyes and the bounce in her walk were sufficient indicators of a fun, enjoyable, successful outing.

The sense of wonder a child has is simply fascinating.  That is why they do not actually speak - they exclaim! It is a jolting reminder of the fact that we were children too, and that we are either losing that sense of wonder or have completely lost it. I envy the scientists, visionaries, and futurists who make wonder their profession and dream up realities (or realize dreams?) that feel like a dream within a dream until they are in your hands, fully materialized and operational. What is amazing is the fact that an invention like the iPad, which re-instilled a sense of wonder in adults via it's gesture-based interface, is lapped up by a child with utmost ease, as if he/she practiced tap, swipe, pinch, and zoom in the womb itself.

The train ride was of course the highlight of the trip to the zoo, which, even if taken via a train, would definitely not have measured up to the zoo's train ride. I wonder what is it about these mini-train rides that fascinates children and adults alike.

For children, I think it is the microcosm of an adventurous trip, with every outdated, low-key or non-existent event brought into full relief in line with what they grow up reading - a choo-choo train, the woot-woot of the whistle, wind blowing straight into the face, sights that can be soaked in without the barrier or walls or glass windows, and of course the cries of joy and wonder from fellow children.

For adults, it is a great escape from the hustle-bustle of daily life. It's like being in a time loop where they get to experience wonders through the eyes of a child or even recall their childhood, and then are back to exactly where they started.

The risky thing about the zoo train ride is that it sometimes makes you forget that you are going to get back to square one. It makes possibilities seem more concrete than they actually are, makes the scenery occasionally shimmer with unreal glaze, and makes the world a little more wondrous than it actually is. Interestingly and figuratively, life's train ride occasionally has the same effect. Got to be careful!

Delicious Absurdities

There is something about this phrase coined by a close friend that makes complete sense. Which is kind of absurd in itself and that makes it all the more surreal. So anyway, let's talk about Audrey Hepburn, the purpose of which will become clear within a paragraph.

The ethereal beauty of Audrey Hepburn is aptly matched by the vulnerability, confidence, compassion and true lack of judgment she projects. I don't know how she was in real life, but Roman Holiday did it for me. If I were the director, I would have cast her in Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and Mary Poppins. Oh wait, she was already cast in My Fair Lady (much to the chagrin of Julie Andrews, who did the stage version) which is awesome already. I have huge respect for Julie Andrews, and she is a complete package (Audrey lip-synched to someone else's voice in My Fair Lady. Julie is a fantastic singer). Julie Andrews somehow doesn't project vulnerability very well - you would almost think she was admonishing you from across the screen for thinking about Audrey and not taking your medicine because a spoonful of sugar always makes the medicine go down. Now you are thinking - 'get to the point!'. But this blog is intended to meander at its own pace - the tennis player Meander Pace would attest, probably! There's an absurdity...

There is a song in Mary Poppins that goes 'I love to laugh'. It very accurately captures what I and my band of dear friends feel when I get together to poke fun at life's oddities, pull seemingly random connections out of the sky to create a roaringly funny point of view, and build quickly upon the concepts of each other to redefine life itself in highly comical vignettes. There's pure joy in that moment, which is totally untethered, is not created to meet any objective except the enjoyment of that moment itself, and serves to create the much-needed condiments we need to add taste to the dish called bland, mundane life! The laughter that results in that moment is soul-uplifting, as if we are rising through the air towards the sky for union with a cosmic consciousness that is constantly laughing at it's own creation. That rise and float feeling is beautifully captured in the 'I love to laugh' song:

Mary Poppins - I Love to Laugh

I remember exactly when me and my friends stumbled upon this remarkable phenomenon. My friend with the last name Menon used to live in Ranchi in a colony called MECON (Metallurgical and Engineering Consultants). We were talking about Menon and MECON when someone asked MECON (mai kaun)? The answer - Mai Nun! That's where this started and I would say that our dexterity has reached the point of being able to create skits in real-time! And it's infectious, because more and more friends around our core group are discovering the joys of it, including kids. Even though people might deny it at face value sometimes and consider this whole exercise childish, it's important to consider that we might just be trying to regain the sense of wonder that we felt growing up, and absurdity is a vehicle to that end!

I will close with 4 brilliant observations from my dearest friends (and myself ;-)), or phattas as they have come to be known:

1. A man says after vasectomy - 'Condom or no condom, vas the deferens?'

2. After discussing an advertisement about Erectile Dysfunction which shows drooping plants followed by an, ahem, upright cactus after treatment which begs the question 'why a cactus' - 'it's a cactus because it represents thorny, t silent'

3. After discussing my interest in getting an elliptical, learning that a friend has it and on his offer to give it to me - 'you can just ride the elliptical to NJ. At the end of it, you will have had so much exercise that you might not even need it!'

4. "The fas ting I do in the morning is break fasting!"

Metal in Air

Take a metal cylinder and slap two metal strips, with imperceptible top-rounding and bottom flatness, on both sides. Install a mechanism under those strips to suck in air, mix it with flammable material, and shoot out hot air from the back. Put a vertical strip on the back of the cylinder, cut out flaps here and there to allow control, push it through an invisible medium, and hope that Bernoulli's principle will really work everytime!

That's your recipe for building an airplane, an invention that fascinates me no end. I remember seeing a movie in my childhood called 'Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines' that chronicled mankind's repeated failed attempts to take flight followed by success - that sequence was simply amazing, and it left an indelible print on my mind. Imagine the feelings Wright Brothers (Wilbur has a sing-song feel to his name. Remember the hindi song Wilbur, Wilbur; Wilbur, Wilbur?) must have had when they saw the labor of their love take to the skies. If China was into manufacturing then, the two Wrights would have made a Wong implement their mass production intent.

A friend of mine used to say - 'Do not trust metal in air!'. While I can understand that sentiment, I do not identify with it. What is the risk in squeezing yourself into a crammed enclosure with hundreds of souls, with nowhere to go but down if there are issues? The inability to pull over might be a little worrisome, but I have never been a nervous flier (I am writing this while I am in the air). Then there's analysis that suggests you could go flying for 123,000 years before a crash occurs. That will be a long flight and I don't know where I will end up. Hope they invent a teleportation device long before then.

Flight provides a perspective on how inconsequential we really are in the bigger scheme of things, and how small we are on the cosmic scale. Remember that when you are frantically trying to complete a work document on the plane, instead of enjoying the landscape, the clouds, and the sheer beauty of the clear blue sky. Oh, you can decide to write a blog article too...

PS. That feeling of complete stillness while moving at a 1000 kilometers per hour, when the plane is above the clouds and the blue sky gives you no sense of movement, is simply incredible!

Higher Resolution

People who see life in high definition owe it to themselves and the world to help people, that see life in standard definition, achieve higher resolution.

While they will be ridiculed and chided
Their perspectives occasionally derided
Their suggestions might go unabided
And leave people confused, undecided

But they can see the forest from the sea of trees
Silent islands from the screaming seas
Unperturbed dandelions in the troubled breeze
The firm resolve in old, wobbly knees

They always bring equilibrium, a calm solution
That might seem counter-intuitive, even a delusion
Give them a fair chance, they don't sell illusion
For they see life in higher resolution...