Rant In Peace
After weeks of planning, and several more weeks of procrastinating, here I am blogging! For this exercise, I am assuming an alter ego for several reasons that I would go on and on about in the next few paragraphs. I have always felt the need to create an alter ego — my first one doesn’t fit me anymore! You see, the official version of me is not a guy who is very comfortable sharing his opinions. In fact, the official me considers it to be his greatest contribution to mankind — the superpower to think independently, form balanced opinions about matters concerning the society, and then just keep it to himself. Opinions are cheap, and everyone seems to be full of them. It’s not that bad in itself, but then people tie their opinions (mostly lopsided) to their identity and measure their place in the society based on its acceptance. They make alliances, friends based on these matching opinions.
Anyways, the alter ego that I’m planning to build is much laxer when it comes to belching out whatever comes to mind. This alter ago is an aspiring misanthropic, who just wants to rant in peace. Naturally the question arises, do I not have the balls to be doing it without hiding behind this anonymity? Well, the short answer is I don’t. The long version of the answer is, I don’t have any intentions of taking responsibility of my views. This is where I come to belch (so if you’re still reading, it’s on you! You have been warned). This is where I come to get it out of my system and not replay different versions of it in my head. So yeah, I have no intentions of leaving my visiting card at the crime scene. Secondly, the official me is a fairly cautious guy, who is known to be people-pleasing at times — very aware of his image and therefore, wouldn’t be comfortable with people judging and commenting on his thoughts.
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So, why misanthropic? Aren’t there some words that you just love the way it sounds the first time you hear it? And then that feeling intensifies once you get to know the meaning? Well, that! Human beings, myself included, baffle me every day. For centuries, we have been trying to make our lives simpler, but instead it keeps getting more and more complex. Does no one really see the vicious cycle here? Will there ever be a point of time in future where we will all agree to stop “improving” our lives, and leave it the way it is? If humanity was a software system, by now there would be a separate team working on V2, writing everything from scratch, and a plan to decommission the legacy version would have been set in stone! Of course, people would say, that is what defines us — the insatiable urge to move forward, test the limits and find better ways to live? I’m all for the quest for the better (well, not always), but when do we pause and reflect if “better” was indeed better or a nudge towards something worse? The benefits of the better seem to outweigh the collaterals, every single time! Unless the impact is too big or catastrophic to ignore! Just as an example (“just” an example, not the entirety of my point here), there is a unanimous agreement that nuclear weapons are the worst, especially since we saw what it can do to the human race. But then, every developing (and some regressing) nation continue to develop their nuclear programs. The operating idea here is that nuclear energy is the future, and hence one must do whatever it takes to deter each other from weaponizing them, but continue developing it for making the world a “better” place. But then what about the metric tons of radioactive nuclear waste that keeps piling on every day. Now, I could add some eye-popping statistics here, but then I don’t want to bother myself with that research, especially since I’m in such a great mood for ranting (so do it if you want). But it is an issue that cannot be ignored, but is. And common people in general wouldn’t really bother about it. On a scale of “stubbing a toe” to “bombing Hiroshima”, I believe the issue of nuclear waste wouldn’t really count on the scale at all. So, back to my original point, is our “quest for something better” really making the world a better place? Is humanity a flawed system? Why bother and interact with another defective instance of a flawed system when collaboration could only lead to something complex?
Then the question is, what am I doing here, using up everything humanity has even achieved in its quest for better (roof under my head, electricity, internet, education, just to name a few)? Shouldn’t I be shunning the entire human race, and go off to some remote corner of the earth and be by myself (off-topic but it’s funny how an oval object like earth can have remote “corners”). Well, that would be tempting, but I’m way too corrupted to do anything about it. I’m a firm believer of status quo, so I don’t think I can go all the way back, just to prove my point (now you see why it was so important to create an alter ego?). If I were Neo from The Matrix, the movie would have been over in the first hour itself — I would have just taken the blue pill (and now you know!)
And that’s why I’m still an “aspiring” misanthropic.
