Stuff

One fundamental question: If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when? Rabbi Hillel says it all and says it well.

If I am ambitious I want more and am not contented; if I am not ambitious I will never be the man I could be. Which is the more pathetic life - an unambitious drudgery or ambitious and eternal discontent?

Which is the more dangerous - power without responsibility or responsibility without power? The first brings the worst out of us while the other drives the best of us into despair.

If I do not discriminate based on colour am I blind? If I do not discriminate based on language am I deaf? If I do not discriminate based on religion am I godless? If I do not discriminate based on nationality am I poor in geography? If I do not discriminate am I not a fool? But what would I rather be - a fool who cannot discriminate or a clever knave of a fundamentalist?

What is the half-life of a modern secret? What is the half-life a modern truth? What is the meaning of a modern lie? What is the purpose of modern facts? Nobody seems to have a private life any more. Nobody seems sure of anything any more(except the Republicans and the fundamentalists). Everybody seems to be conspiring - for what they don't know. Everybody seems to own a dictionary and an encyclopedia.

Mysticism is not the answer; Formalism is not the answer; Idealism is not the answer; Realism is not the answer; Pessimism is not the answer; Empiricism is not the answer; Existentialism is not the answer; Philosophy is not the answer; Science is not the answer; Religion is not the answer; Contentment is not the answer; Ambition is not the answer; Happiness is not the answer; Despair is not the answer; Atleast nothing is answer enough; But what is the question, do we know that any more? Does it matter?

(Somewhere in between, always something in between, or maybe not that)

(I have elucidated for myself for now a principle of the almost arbitrary)

Tell me someday, if you can, what patriotism means; tell me also what affection is. What is love? What are those long words that we remember from the dictionary when we see a boatload of wretched black men transported whipped and bound across choppy seas by guys with handlebar moustaches? What is that lump of meat clogging the pipes when everyone rises to say "I am Spartacus"? What do the words that men give their lives for mean? What is the cold hand that drives men across continents to die in unfriendly shores for things they don't see, for men who don't care for them, for promises they haven't heard and are not meant for them anyway? And when you have explained all this to me, tell me why, if you would.