Saturday, June 06, 2009

Suicide: the philosophical question!

My last blog got a few nice and interesting comments. Some say its the bold decision, the decision to suicide. While some say if you cant do any good while alive what good will you do by being dead?

May be I was not clear in my last blog. Or may be the topic was too touchy in the first place. Because no where did I say that one should commit suicide. Its more about thinking of suicide. Its more about realizing the utter futility of the air we give to our menial silly lives. Its about the folly of our lives.

"Butterfly effect" is a term coined by many who discuss the chaos theory. They say that the flapping of a butterfly in Uganda can cause a super cyclone in Orissa! But the other way is also equally likely, i.e. the flapping of a butterfly in Uganda can stop a super cyclone from materializing over Orissa!

Similarly, from my last blog I wanted to make both the sides clear. There is no big benefit of you staying alive. Neither is there any benefit of you committing suicide. It really makes no sense at all about what you do. Just zoom out (either in space or in time or in both) and you realize it hardly matters if you live or you die or kill or rob or rape or meditate!

Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Why should you live?

I read somewhere many years ago, "the only truly philosophical question is suicide!" At that time I did appreciate the line. "Why should a man continue living", is a truely amazing question and occurs to most of us some time or the other in our lives. Mostly we avoid or ignore or postpone the question. I did the same. We mostly do so, I think, because we are scared that in case we find the answer to be in affirmative, then we may commit suicide. And that will stop us from enjoying our lives. Life, though confusing, has its own charm. So people discover all types of nonsense rules to stop us from thinking of suicide, e.g. "suicide is sin"!!

Few days back I read "What is Maya", an essay by Swami Vivekananda. So lucidely he has explained about "maya" and how life is interesting. My last blog reflects some of the after thoughts of that essay. As concluded there, life is interesting. But this aint any cause to continue living this life! Do you try all things that seem interesting; like trying weed?

So huge is the world. And so insiginficantly minial is our existence. Its like the life of some bacteria. You remember those scenes in some shows where they zoom-out the camera... till they show the globe! Many times I do the same in my thought process and try to go till the level of galaxy. Who really cares what you do to your friend or how to cheated your brother? Neither it matters how you helped the old blind man. Its all insignificantly insignificant.

One of my friends told, after much of discussion, "man lives for himself". OK, very well. This is like some circle then, "you live because you are alive". Let me cut the circle! If you are dead you are saved the effort to live!

PS: Well, dont think that I am gatehring suicidal tendency! Its all genuine enquiry!!