Our Place

I was just going through pages when I read about saw some dude feeling sorry for the beggars in his bus. He was frustrated about the human inequality and how everyone should be getting equal opportunity. You get the drift.

Its the rule of the nature that best of the lot survives. The resources at our disposal are scarce and we have to fight to achieve them. Whoever wins survives, others just perish away. Humans too, being a part of this nature, are made that way. It is therefore, a certainty that the best of the lots, here too, are meant to be successful. That "naturally" justifies inequality.

What also is true, though, is that humans were never meant to be slaves. The only reason humans are above other animals is because they can use their environment (including other humans) for their own benefits. So a man being a slave of the other is a rather strange occuring. Previously (thousands of years ago) , a man would fight to prove his point. No wonder wars were so frequent those days. What I see now is how the world order has been able to suppress or rather pacify a man's hunger and natural desire to compete and be successful. A war is big thing now, personal fights are regarded as ugly. We have suddenly become peace loving creatures when given a chance all of us would love to kick so many asses that surround us. So why are we suppressing our anger and building this wall of frustration inside us? Why do we have pay to some garage guy and break some glasses and window panes to vent out frustration? Why can't beggars stand up for themselves and claim for their rightful opportunities? A meritocracy, though unequal in nature, provides for equal opportunity for everyone and meritocracy is the only natural way.

So what went wrong?

Well, I have always felt that humans perenially manage to discover new ways to dominate the will of others. Earlier, it used to be the hope of leadership through the uncertainities of nature, then it changed to religion, and now it is simply consumerism. The idea that comsuming is more important that any other factors of human lives and that happiness comes out of personal possession. Stupid that it may sound that is the truth. Earlier, knowledge, spirituality or even philanthropy were just among many ideas of a successful person. Now there is only one way to the successful, to be rich! The person's success quotient now is based on the money he has or trather the amount he can consume of show off. No doubt Slumdog Millionaire was such a hit, no doubt we love watching VH1 Cribs and listening to that Nickelback song.

People at top have always figured out ways to stay at top. The few that manage to reach the top from the bottom are supposed to be the glimmer of false hope that society gives to its people so they don't burst out. Through education, religion, morality, law and order and even media are just promoting the propaganda that this is how our world is supposed to be and consumerism is the key to happiness. Couple that with the glamour and romance of making it rich to the top, there we have a perfect platform for turning people into these bots who have been  conditioned to believe that success and failure and all but materialistic in nature. "The American Dream" as they call it is an perfect example. When were humans this passive? When were humans accepting their "fate and place" in their society? When was being discriminated and disregarded a normal thing? The spirit of fighting back was always there and still is. But now there is a sense of failure than optimism. The problem though is there are so many filters kept in place to check the upward flow that making it to the top is now a big thing. And even if you make it big, the values and emotions have so run out of this humans society that happiness is best expressed in movies and novels rather than a human life.

So the I-feel-sorry-for-beggar dude, stop feeling sorry for beggar. Start feeling sorry for yourself and the whole mankind.