When the Earth Jolts

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/sympathy-for-japan-and-admiration/?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=OP-SM-E-FB-SM-LIN-SFT-031111-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

Watching the pics and videos of the earthquake hit areas, i cudnt help but notice that people were not going crazy as one might have expected them to behave while facing such destruction... I remember watching live streams from Hurricane Katrina (US, 2005) and Haiti last year and it was painful to see many embracing their inner demons and assailing other victims with their basic instincts run amok... in treacherous times they were, and my sympathies are for their losses, but as Japanese are showing right now, even victims have a choice of choosing their behavior under extreme duress...

Of course, people coming out to help and support each other is not new, and we have seen it being put into practice in India during Bhuj and Tsunami, but Japanese are better in that than us... and I do not think it is because of difference in fiscal states between India and Japan... No... it is rather because the social fabric of Japan remains strong, their sense of purpose as a nation and pride remain indelibly strong, and that creates a structure for them to conduct themselves in ways befitting of their beliefs...

Although there are countless things which ail Japanese society... I always thought the idea of seppuchu was a bit extreme... that a growing number of old people there are turning to be more lascivious with weird fetishes, and that the 'workaholic' culture is not stable in long term...
but
I have always admired Japanese for their sense of purpose, and their social fabric... i have always loved the idea that although they are pioneers in creating humanoids and geminoids, they have maintained respect for their age old customs, traditions and social hierarchy - to point that they can be accused of being completely inflexible... still, the intertwining of old with new is the best way to look into future and Japanese have mastered that in their culture...

In any case, this is not the last time i will bemoan about changes I wish to see in India and around the world... but it is time to think about what is happening in Japan... and pray for them...

May God placate the Earth...

The DNA of future...

Beautiful video and short but compelling narrative...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY59wZdCDo0

The dream of a better future lives on and thrives on shoulders of those who can think beyond our petty differences and realize that we all are residents of one terrafirma... that the mathematical probability of our accidental existence on this little 'pale blue dot' in the vast incomprehensible universe is so significantly small, that it is the most significant event in the known universe....

looking around its hard to imagine if peace is ever possible on this planet... it appears to me that 'peace' is as mythical as a unicorn or the one-eyed monster... and I can't help but wonder again and again, if war and discontent is in our blood? if its ingrained in our DNA? Is there an anger switch in our genes? a gene for jealousy?

we all have come long way since the early cave man discovered fire and made weapons out of rocks... and yet it appears that in spite of all the evolutionary progress, our aggression hasnt tempered down... and I know I can't blame evolution for this anomaly... evolution never really got a chance to change us in significan't ways...

i have read about 'ram rajya'... the mythical times when there was peace upon earth... I dont know whether it existed in reality or not... but look back at the history and one might realize that in reality there was never a long period of peace on this earth... if there is an anger gene, it never got a chance to mutate because there simply was never a time when its need wasnt there...

but now that we are in present state, living with traits which have been trickling down to us since centuries, what pathways lie before us to circumvent our problems and attain the higher goal of peace and progress??

For long I thought religion can provide us a guiding path... but the idea of religion has failed in my viewpoint... our sense of ingrained tradition and reverence to authority is so great that we cannot look beyond the veils of tradition to realize that all religions speak a common language... Every time the discussion on philosophy of religion begins, it ends up in arguments over supremacy of ones religion over another... this road has been walked upon too often and now its time for trying something else... and one simple solution against religion is have larger faith in science...

the conflict between science and religion has long been overstated... for long have the speakers of religions spoken in ardor of the cold and non-emotional state of science as an existential threat to our society and general way of living... and like many others, I believe that this threat is fueled by what they do not understand and perhaps by their fear of being castigated by others... in reality, both science and religion aspire to answer some very similar questions... science is more spiritual than the spirituality imbibed in the idea of religion itself...

while I am big fan of Sir Richard Dawkins, I do not completely share his arguments that religion is 'root of all evil'.... I find my viewpoint much more matched with ideas of our present 'his holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama'... A true seeker of truth and god, he has shown that how science and religion can live in a symbiotic relation...

one might argue that there is certain degree of authoritarianism in science... and that we have to take words of Einstein, Newton and many others as granted... so... yes like all religions, there is authority and tradition in science too... but this authority is by no means unchallenged, and their words are rarely taken for granted... in fact in science we know that those who are revered were by no means perfect and were fallible because they were normal people amongst us... they were not immortals, however their achievements and accomplishments have survived against the rigorous test of time...

in some ways, their beliefs were as magical as any religious story... the discovery of bulb and electricity gave the power to remove darkness in our hands... isnt it as powerful as story of a rock being stopped by Baba Nanak or story of the entire Govardhan parwat lifted by lord Krishna?... thats why am rooting for science... for it is a universal religion and transcends any border and free from prejudice of authority and irrationality....

n am hoping that someday... maybe someday science can provide us with some solutions... a flu shot against anger... a vaccine against jealousy... a pill against hunger... or simply a flu shot which opens our eyes and enlightens us and makes us realize that what separates us also binds us...