Alchemy of desire: the appropriateness of being
Often when anything bizarre happens in society, almost
everyone likes to flee to a higher moral ground. If this is the case in a
catastrophe, it is reasonably understandable as all one is trying to do is
protect oneself physically and hence survive. Survival is the key, it is a
basic and universal instinct looked upon as a means of adaptation. Both, being interchangeable,
are to a large degree acceptable in the realm of Nature. There again if only
the urge to survive becomes the uppermost need, then there wouldn't be the
possibility of allowing another to hang in there, with perhaps just a toe-hold.
Self-protection would take on in totality in deciding either or. And that is just the beginning of the
problem. So is it the survival of just an individual or an entire species?
In the churning of the universe there is a constant
upsurge of waves, only a part panning into view for a while but operating on a
very subtle and micro-level are changes that impact eternities. Similarly in
the world as we know it, in terms of society or more essentially the human
brain, minor to large changes are constantly colluding with each other in the
neurons, setting off either positive creations or creating debacles.
In all of existence as is apparent with current
knowledge, humans, are endowed with a better sense of perception, thanks to the
evolved brain, but ever too often, slip back into tweaking the means of
adaptation and hence survival, banking on mechanisms that are solely suitable
to them as individuals. Is this going against Nature and hence our nature? Or
is it a reflex action, of offence is the best defense, policy? Whatever be the
case, there are benchmarks in society by which one would tend to measure the
degree of going off tangent.
Within that arena too, ones finds the conflict or the
persistent prevalence of desire, the urge
becoming the ruler, deluding one to believe that the action is a consequence of
survival for one or the other. This aspect is often played out in society in the
form of the universal law of the jungle, where, ‘might becomes a right’ and yet
paradoxically, there is a lot of truth in the Biblical adage, ‘the meek shall
inherit the earth’.
The recent surfeit of inexplicably deplorable events,
are a manifestation of the implicit that is in man (humans): the primitive,
bestial instinct to rule and/or crush. In the animal kingdom it is associated
with the laws of existence and not slanderous behaviour. Irrationality does not
find a space in the natural dominion, but in the social firmament, ludicrous is
the new key to survival.
Is the answer hidden somewhere in the layers of artificiality
built around humans? Is the answer in level-headedness? Is it in the appropriateness of being? Or is
it hidden in being appropriate? But what we get to see around is only
appropriating deals and usurping of one’s own soul.
© Copyright Suverchala Kashyap
P.S. This is in continuation of the previous write up, 'Feet of clay: atone, allay?
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