Yashas Mahajan's Blog, page 25
January 14, 2020
Word of the Week #198:
So, I am guessing it is common knowledge, by now, that I do have a way with the words.
However, I have never been particularly adept at speaking, especially among strangers. It might seem odd, but I just prefer to sit down and collate my thoughts and write a cogent, concise response to every query I face.
Recently, though, I have been told by people who have known me for several years that I have improved at public speaking, and people who have just come to know me even find it hard to believe that I’m actually not good at it.
“What is your trick?” some of them ask me. “Can you give us any tips?”
I thought long and hard about it, and I think I do have a fair idea of how I have managed to improve at speaking. It is actually simple, though it might not necessarily be easy.
Know who you are.Know what you want.Prepare.Simple, right? But not easy.
January 7, 2020
Word of the Week #197:
I have often met people who believe that our role in the democratic system ends with our vote.
That is not true at all.
If anything, that is where our role begins.
You see, when we vote for a person, we are electing that person to be our representative. Hence, the concept of “representative democracy”.
It is expected that this person will represent the interests of the constituents. However, too often, we see our officials represent nothing but their own interests, and at the most those of the people who voted for them.
At this point, there will be some people who will maintain that such behaviour is the true definition of democracy, and that this is what a representative is supposed to do with the people’s mandate.
That, however, is not true.
A democratic government is a government for all the people, not just a favourable subset.
Any government that forgets this fact is due for a rude, and loud, awakening.
December 31, 2019
Word of the Week #196:
Why do people quit?
Is it a symptom of wisdom, or of weakness?
It is not easy to tell, is it?
One of the most difficult things in life is knowing when to quit. After all, we can never truly know if we have tried our very best, right? At least I never do.
I will never accept that I couldn’t have done something better or something different. I do have a very high opinion of my own abilities, after all. And yet, doing something better or something different does not guarantee a desirable outcome.
So, how do I make sure I don’t get stuck in a worthless endeavour?
Well, more often than not, I really don’t.
I just keep scraping for what I want at that moment, and things generally seem to work out well, in the end.
How does that ad go? Maybe I’m born with it… Maybe it’s make-believe… Something to that effect, I’m sure.
Who can know for sure, right?
All I do know is what I want, and that is often enough.
December 24, 2019
Word of the Week #195:
I have often felt that my art comes from a place of joy and love. I find it difficult to write when I am significantly disturbed or distressed.
These past couple of weeks have been nothing but distressing, right?
It has been reported that at least 25 people have lost their lives during the protests. Oddly enough, many of them were not even protestors, but simply random bystanders.
Reporters and activists have been threatened, arrested, or assaulted.
Even vehicles in the street have not avoided the wrath of the police.
It is enough to chill one to the bones, is it not?
Whom do you call when the cops turn on you?
Call me.
“It is the common peoples duty to police the police.”
― Steven Magee
December 17, 2019
December 10, 2019
Word of the Week #193:
We all like superheroes, right?
Who wouldn’t love characters like Batman, who fight crime, go after bad guys, and maintain peace in the world.
However, such individuals are better suited to the fictional world.
In the real world, people who operate outside the law and execute their own brand of justice are not called superheroes. They are are described by a different term: lynch mobs.
Over the past few years, I have noticed that in the wake of any highly publicised violent crime, amidst the usual outpouring of grief, there is a strong public demand for an immediate, equally violent retaliation. Ones who advocate basic concepts like “due process” come to be seen as dinosaurs, and their character comes to be questioned.
While it may seem natural to give in to our basest of instincts in a moment of pain and anger, one most always remember the difference between vengeance and justice. They make look the same when we are blinded by our emotion, but they are quite distinct.
There are practical reasons that could explain why following the due process can be beneficial to the society at large, but the simple fact is that we should not need reason and logic to do the right thing.
Isn’t that the very definition of a civilised society? That we can look past our immediate emotions and do what is right for society as a whole?
As the Chief Justice was forced to articulate, in response to the recent events:
“The criminal justice system in our country must change its attitude towards laxity and the time taken to dispose of each case. But I don’t think justice can ever be or ought to be instant, and justice must never ever take the form of revenge. I believe justice loses its character of justice if it becomes revenge.
—S A Bobde, Chief Justice of India
December 3, 2019
Word of the Week #192:
Are some people better than others?
“He/she could do so much better…”
“How on Earth did he/she land someone like that!”
“He/she is just not good enough for you…”
How often have we heard these words? How often have we said them ourselves?
It is probably a natural thing to say, I suppose, considering:
I’m at that age where scores of my acquaintances are getting engaged or married every passing weekHow pervasive arranged marriages are in my geographical vicinityI actually said all three of those over the past weekendHowever, the question remains… Are some people better than others?
If we really thought about it, we would conclude that humans are—obviously—too complex to be assigned a single, objective rating, right?
What if we considered something simpler? Something inanimate?
Can we rate different tools in terms of their utility? Are hammers better than crowbars? Pliers over screwdrivers?
The answer would probably depend on whom you ask when. Sure, power drills are useful—and objectively cool—but one would not really use them to fit a new sink, right?
I suppose the same could be true of humans, right? The person I want on my basketball team might not be the one I want on my publicity team. The person I want as a business partner might not be the one I want as a romantic partner.
And, in hindsight, if someone ever questioned my choice of mate, I might be tempted to bash their skull in with a crowbar. Just saying.
November 26, 2019
Word of the Week #191:
Is life easy?
Is your life easy?
Because, sure, you can look at someone else’s life and think, “Boy, they have it easy. If only I…”
We do do that, do we not?
Our own life rarely seems easy.
It can seem good, yes, but knowing how hard we have had to work and how many things have had to go the right way to make it as good, we will never think it was easy. Instead, we might even get anxious about it, right?
What if I am not able to keep working this hard for the next 5, 10, 20 years? My life will come crashing down!
What if I do keep working hard and things still don’t work out? What if something random goes wrong and my life goes up in smoke.
Knowing that our wonderful little lives are nothing more than a house of cards can be daunting, and knowing that we cannot control how the wind blows can be harrowing.
How do we then keep our lives from crashing all around us?
My answer is quite simple: WE DON’T.
There are some things that are just beyond our control. That fact will never change.
That is the curse of humanity: Sentience and potence without omniscience and omnipotence.
So, what do you do?
Well, you could do nothing, and simply give in to the entropy, but that is not what you want to do, right?
Instead, why not just learn how to rebuild your house of cards? Each time you try it, build it faster and better.
Simple.
That makes things easier, right?
Any way the wind blows,
Doesn’t really matter to me.—Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody
November 19, 2019
Word of the Week #190:
We can learn a lot about a person or a people by what they choose to allow.
Often—really, way too often—in life, we disagree with what our friends, colleagues, and even governments do, but we have to let it go because it is unfeasible not to.
Often, these are trivial, such as when a certain friend might mispronounce a certain word or a coworker may occasionally wear stinky shoes. It is not ideal, but it is tolerable, and letting this one thing go might be wiser.
However, there are times when these things are not trivial.
We may have a friend who routinely drives under the influence of alcohol, but he may be a good friend in most other regards.
The issue may not affect us directly, but can we allow it?
Our family business may exploit its employees, but it may be highly profitable and therefore good for us.
But can we allow it?
Our firm may help a man clean up his reputation after a slew of credible and appalling allegations of sexual misconduct, but the pay is good so we might as well do it.
But can we allow it?
Our government may disregard human and constitutional rights to oppress minorities and quash dissent, and I wouldn’t want to jeopardise my own comfortable life to fight them.
But can we allow it?
You cannot say, “I voted for Hitler because of his social welfare policies. I wasn’t really on board with the Holocaust and all. See, I’m a good guy.”
If you do not condemn it, you condone it.
You are part of the problem.
