My Inner Strife

Goodness breeds goodness. What you sow is what you reap. Rings a bell? How often have you heard that? I always keep hearing these cacophonous sounds everywhere. Be it a movie, a book or a person for instance. Be good to people and everything good will automatically happen to you. But does it actually happen? I see the most slimy and cunning people climbing the success ladder in today's world. Selfishness is directly proportional to material gains. Isn't it? Then where is goodness in this fast moving world of today. Have we kind of forgotten why we are here.
Well OK .. a lot of people might say i am an idealist.....we should be pragmatic. But all of us are not born with the traits needed to survive in this world. So how do we get them. Its simple. We acquire them. How? Of course through our experiences.There are basically two things that can happen then. Experiences can bring the worst out of us or maybe in some instances the better in us. Its we who decide what we have to do. Haven't you heard that the good and the evil is within us. We decide which one finally triumphs.
However, as Jacques Monod says " who decides what is good and what is evil?" Here is one school of thought which is evenly poised between the two extremities. I already mentioned idealism which of course needs no introduction. There's a thin line between idealism and "practical idealism". Practical idealism is a philosophy which describes the imperative need to implement the ideals of virtue and goodness in oneself. And one of its great proponents is our very own Gandhi. It sounds like utilitarianism, which broadly speaking, is promoting happiness for the maximum number of people we can. But nonetheless its practical and along with it virtuous......hmmmmmm........now don't these two terms sound like 'antonyms'!!
Therefore in retrospect, i would still say its kind of difficult to be 'practically ideal' but not impossible. As far as i remember, as children most of us (not all indeed) were without any malice or any prejudice. The beauty of the innocence of the child is somewhere marred on the way to success in this material world. Many people also say that evil must constantly re spawn but virtue is immortal. That is definitely a consolation. Yet I keep telling myself 'I shouldn't become a bad person because other people are bad to me'. Who knows, i may already have become Satan's accomplice and am not as 'holier than thou' as i perceive myself to be. And in fact, no one knows what will happen in the future. No one knows who will triumph in this never ending abstract war going on inside the grey cells of my brain.

The old order changeth, yielding place to new !!

Ive been thinking of starting this blog for almost 3 yrs now ( this of course would give you an idea about how much i procrastinate). However, why i landed up starting it today, is an enigma for me too. Writing is something that came very naturally to me when i was in school, which ofcourse now seems to be quite a long time back. I remember i used to maintain a diary in which i wrote religiously about all the school affairs right from quarrels between friends to my aspirations of becoming a tennis superstar . Sounds funny, doesn't it. I also wrote for the school magazine and my English teachers did tell me i was good in essay writing. However , these were the only meagre stints i had in writing although i always nurtured this hope of becoming a journalist and writing for a current affairs magazine !!! What a pity it is that i am still doing my PhD (in Molecular Medicine not English Literature) and the writer within me for all these years has been nipped in the bud.....
And to tell you the truth, after all these years writing is a little scary. Its not that i have run out of thoughts or ideas but to pen them down is slightly difficult. But then if i don't do it today i may not do it ever. And hasn't somebody said 'Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.' So - here I am.