Dark Slide of the Loon

The human brain defines the human, yet it perpetually teeters on the edge of delirium. The factors are multiple - environment, circumstances, personal choice, or a dip (could be planned, could be accidental) in a yucky gene pool. While the fact that the brain is the essence of our existence and yet so fragile is quite disturbing, it's a lot more appalling to think that destroying a part of the brain via lobotomy and permanently altering the person was acceptable practice in the 40s and 50s.

The Urdu word for human being is insaan, for humanity is insaniyat. Attach an e and take away an a, and we have insane and insanity. How's that for teetering? There is a very fine line that separates man from mad (actually just one letter, come to think of it). Dementia is just a slip away from our dimension into a self-built alternate reality and ironically, the people who start wandering that personal alternate reality can be called 'no'mad. If enough personal alternate realities found common ground and a way to cross over and share, the loons shall inherit the earth.

Cracks in our psychological and emotional veneer manifest as quirks and idiosyncracies. If we don't figure out how to fill those cracks, they start propagating and become psychoses, neuroses and eventually full-blown dementia (there's physical/genetic factors to initiate/accelerate the process, of course). With every passing year we lose flexibility and become more brittle, and these cracks start smoking more crack, ready to mislead us to shattering conclusions. Being malleable is tough in this rapidly changing world, but of extreme necessity.

So what did the loon get from the moon? Apparently you can go mad if the moon shone on you while you were asleep, or maybe just with the phase changes of the moon. If the moon can have such a strong effect from a distance, did Neil Armstrong experience heightened lunacy in the lunar sea when he landed on the moon?

Interestingly, the non-human world is a lot crazier - that is why the cuckoo went cuckoo, the nut bolted, the banana slipped/lost a peel/went bananas, kangaroos went hopping mad, chimpanzees went ape, the pressure cooker blew a gasket, the golf ball became de'range'd, the pistol went ballistic, and Willly went wonka! Most of the exciting figures of speech are about negative scenarios - positivity is boring I guess.

There is no dark slide of the loon. Matter of fact, it's all spark. A bright, cheery ascent to a chocolate factory. Willy can attest to that after he is done ordering the Oompa Loompas around.

The Notion of Motion

This fascinating universe buzzes incessantly with motion

Celestial spheres race around the sun in orbits elliptical

Occasionally running into darting asteroids with trajectories whimsical

Unaware of its pending demise, fated for a tragic surprise

Matter hurtles dizzily towards the black hole in morbid locomotion

Electrons whizz around the nucleus, awating a promotion

To a higher energy state that apparently leads to illumination

The atom is a surprising microcosm of this astronomical creation

Flux is the essence, an unsettling presence

In existence, paradoxically resulting from the big bang explosion

The human mind is mobility in disguise, like a seemingly calm ocean

Underwater volcanoes are rife with inorganic strife

Seismic activity abounds, threatening precious life

Stillness is a deception, a result of flawed perception

Underneath the placid surface, there is unimaginable commotion

Like this aging planet, humanity faces increasing erosion

Of values, mores, and civility, a deepening spiritual delusion

Yearning to be addressed by fate and causality in karmic collusion

Life embodies the human 'race', every generation picks up pace

As we speed towards the inevitable moral demotion

But we are excitedly working towards the ultimate potion

To help answer all origin queries and make us question devotion

Stomach churns, heart palpitates, lungs exhale, brain calculates

In the end, this universe does not matter without human e'motion'

And that makes motion a very stirring notion!

Answerable Questions or Questionable Answers?

Science: Who, what, when, why, where, how?

Religion: Him!

As demonstrated above, the key difference between Science and Religion is that Science asks and provides answers to many questions, while Religion starts with an answer that invites many questions. Interestingly, that one answer is all encompassing, and even Science cannot escape its clutches - how else do we explain the search for the 'God' particle via a $10 billion, 17 mile-long Large Hadron Collider? The sheer scale of the universe and the need to regularly deal with innumerable forces beyond control (weather, housing, jobs, debt, GNR's next album, the meandering Ikea shopping cart with all-wheel mobility) makes human beings question their very being and seek solace by attributing structure (if not always form) to the unknown.

Facts and Factions

Where's the fun in fighting about facts? If everyone worshipped the sun (a very elegant solution by George Carlin - too bad people are not interested), the only deaths that would occur would be related to too much sun exposure [while on the t(r)opic of cancer], and the only religious factions that would exist would be around sunscreen SPF ratings (my SPF30 is better than your SPF15!). The human race unites in the face of common danger (as Reagan said about the earth coming together in the face of an alien invasion), and quickly degenerates into adopting inane causes to fight about when there is none. The fight against corruption takes a backseat to the quest for ethnic renaming of cities and landmarks in India. So let's accept it - factions are an undeniable state of human being and are invariably based on some fictitious interpretation.

Every tough question invites a lot of passion and conflict till it resolves to an answer which is irrefutable fact. The priest class survives by constructing semi-factual answers that can be force-fed to the masses and keep them contentious with other schools of thought. Reaction to discovery of new information is very strong because that could potentially destabilize the seat of power and the steady revenue stream, as Galileo discovered when he proved metalhead Nickels Copper-Nickels' theory that earth is not the center of the universe.

Gotta have Faith?

This brings us to the crux of this article. The key to exploring a polarizing and explosive topic is to temper it down with analogies and obscure references so that you have plausible deniability in the end. I don't have that key. This is a largely negative point-of-view on the machinations of Religion, and not a comment on the personal strength and comfort it provides to individuals. If you are in violent disagreement (thus proving my point regarding a topic like this), please write your own article.

Religion is a topic that has been explored to death literally and figuratively. I struggle to think of another concept built on an unknown and unseen force that works in mysterious ways with no guaranteed outcome (if this is not a giant leap of faith, what is?) wielding so much control over life and wreaking so much havoc in the process. While suspension of disbelief is a prime requirement of faith, a melding of that with unbridled passion results in fundamentalism which ironically is grossly lacking in fundamentals. So what is it about religion that evokes such strong passion? I think it's about the uncontrollable tendency of human beings to force their conjectures and faith on others and then get defensive to the point of being offensive when asked to substantiate those conjectures. That is why Inquisitions were never about questions and answers. The pressure to conform is intensified manifold when accompanied by the unstated (or grossly overstated, depending on the part of the world you live in) threat of persecution.

Godmatism

With ego and commerce steamrolling the original tenets of faith and spirituality, the economic model of religion thrives on two basic emotions: fear and guilt. Pay up to avoid suffering the wrath of God, and pay up to atone for and wash away the sins you find yourself returning to at every opportunity. This is a far cry from what religion was touted to be if not intended to be: attaining spirituality, illumination, salvation, or just peace of mind - unfortunately some people mistook peace of mind for piece of mind and considered themselves superior enough to give a piece of their mind to the less aware and get a piece of gold in return. Every great cause gets trivialized in the long run.

Road to Hell

The path to God is peppered with toll-booths where oversized gas-guzzling vehicles, having driven off that energy-efficient but low acceleration vehicle called spirituality off the road a long while back, repeatedly pay extra toll to atone for their incurable road-rage tendencies. There are also trains driven by sinister ministers and saints with taints of all religions, full of raging fan(atic)s holding a one-way ticket to their glorious destination which generally unbeknownst to them happens to be a cliff. Not to forget zealot pilots promising a speedy but ill-fated ascent to heaven.

Adventures of InstantGratifix

This world of instant gratification has resulted in the quest for spiritual ecstasy degenerate into a drink of the 'spirit' kind and a pill called ecstasy. Instant gratification has become a fix. Here's an ode to InstantGratifix, the indomitable Gaul in relentless pursuit of an easy and instant fix:

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Sole Intention of a Soul In Tension
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The sole intention of a soul in tension is learning to fly 

No patience to try, shoots straight for the sky 

Comes crashing down to the amusement of passers-by


Maybe it was a pig on the wing that met its fate befitting  
Or maybe a soul with unscrupulous underpinning  
Unwilling to take baby steps in the beginning


Condition grounded, still determined to try  
The optimist, shat upon by a bird  
Thanks god that elephants don't fly


The key to ascension is Good Orderly Direction  
Heaven can't wait and provides people bait  
Wanting to get an instant high on the sly
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Good Orderly Direction

A wise friend once said that GOD is Good Orderly Direction. We live in a world obssessed with setting and achieving goals (for soccer fanatics that takes on a more literal meaning). Words like salvation, nirvana, spirituality are allocated a lot more weight than they should be and their quest defeats their very purpose. What if we just focused on the following commandments/rules/laws culled from multiple religions and not get caught up in all the hype?

· Do unto others as you would have others do unto you - Masochists need not apply.

· Do your work, and don't worry about the fruits of your labor (Gita) - Unless you are an apple farmer and your work is your fruit.

· A human being may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm (Isaac Asi'Moses' laws of Humanics) - Originally written for robots but effortlessly extensible to human beings.

There's Chauncey Gardner from 'Being There', an electric little movie that showed Peter Sellers in an entirely different (and brilliant) light. The defining moment comes when he, having gained fame as 'Chance The Gardener' with his simple vegetative observations getting interpreted as profound spiritual principles, just walks unaware onto a pond and on realizing that he is standing on water, dips his umbrella in the water and finds it go straight in. He smiles and just walks on, not even realizing the significance of what he did.

People are expected to do good things selflessly - I don't quite understand that. What's the harm in feeling proud when you do a good thing and being applauded for it? Maybe it will prompt the fundamentalists to learn some fundamentals.

To emphasize the point made above: while there is no 'I' in team, there are 2 I's in Spirit, be it of the ethereal or the alcoholic kind! Is this a questionable answer?

Better late ...?

We flip the pages of life as if running from a wildfire
Unwilling to slow down till it comes down to the wire
Pages turn flippant when we wish our lives to rewire
That drive down memory lane hobbles on a flat tire

Procrastination rules till it comes to things we desire
'Rash' decisions are made by the itch we acquire
Brash people invariably land in a ditch or mire
Righteous people end up just preaching to the choir

Seemingly momentous occasions are prioritized higher
Small moments keep spinning all life in the dryer
When it finally comes to realizing how they inspire
They have turned a size too short for the tryer

The never-ending quest for more space lights our fire
And loses all its meaning in the grave or on the pyre
Moments wasted reaching for the future while we respire
Are a result of constantly putting want over what we do require

Thirst for conquest is the weapon from the arms supplier
Relationships and people get killed in the cross-fire
Getting first to the cheese means everything to the high-flyer
Rat race is about the trap of loneliness, knows the non-buyer

Hindsight provides clear perspective on shots we misfire
Fear of heights becomes palpable AFTER we climb the tallest spire
Regrets many, consolations few, tears fail to retire
Bad decisions and death tend to accost in shiny attire

Our children teach us about becoming humans entire
And that unconditional parental love of which we were a denier
We keep shifting blame to our younger selves till we expire
Life actually gave us a clear glimpse but we failed to enquire

When it comes to realizations, epiphanies are what we admire
Day-to-day eye-openers are left unopened to expire
'Better late than never' is the motto to which we aspire
Why is the need for 'Never late is better' not made dire?

Contesting Contexts or Contextual Contests?

Some words are great levelers. While they soar in contexts that are complex, sacred or respectable, they also serve to deflate those very contexts by finding usage in polar opposites. This raises pointed questions about the people who came up with the varied usage of these words - they were definitely double-agents for the dark side.

• Swear - A gloriously multi-faceted word that begs close inspection. You can swear in the name of god to proclaim truthfulness and integrity, swear in the name of god to express shock/anger and basically blaspheme, swear to invoke hell/evil and blaspheme again, solemnly swear to uphold a declaration or a position in society, or just simply swear to your heart's content (here you stand the risk of swearing out your welcome). The last one has maximum potential as well as honest emotional value. What is key regarding this word is that you can swear in the name of god and be either religious or blasphemous! This beats Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

• Institution, Committed - Both marriage and mental asylums are institutions. You are required to commit to the first, and are forcibly committed to the second. You might be sane enough to identify you are insane and voluntarily check into a mental institution - I believe that percentage is significantly low. Either way you end up committed and in an institution. So what exactly is being implied here? And what of people who go insane after marriage? Can they plead sanity by noting they are already committed and in an institution?

• Culture - We are a culture growing on nutrient substances, usually under controlled conditions. So are bacteria, a form of life that are orders of magnitude simpler than human beings, yet capable of causing unimaginable havoc to the human culture. The good bacteria typically dies young while the evil bacteria seems to live forever. Anyway, why is a word of such sweeping range and richness used in the bacterial context?

• Organized - While this word holds its own when used individually, it takes on a different connotation when used in the context of 2 diametrically opposite (are they?) concepts - religion and crime. I wonder which one has resulted in higher casualties.

Then there's the incendiary 'race' which does not require a context at all (because it is the context) and is in a perennial contest with itself. People are a race and in a race, and oneupmanship is inextricably wired into the human gene.