RIP Aaron Schwartz

Today, I learned about Aaron Schwartz death. I spent the entire day with friends, watching movies, smoking up and watching sit-coms on Netflix. And all along there was something burning inside me.
Something that just wouldn't let go. I came back home and rolled up another joint, settled down with my laptop ready to sleep. I click on a link on Facebook about Aaron.
And the sleepless night goes on.

Every now and then, I always wonder what life meant. What the purpose of existence really was. Was it to pro-create? Have life forms, in their attempt to pro-create, with no reason other than just being programmed to do so, just evolved over millions of years into a sophisticated bloat of intricate communication cells, that have reached a point where they can question about their own path and destination?
Well, that's for another day, but Aaron's cause has really touched me. Life in and of itself, can only be expressed as the desire to have a chance to prolong its existence. Darwin taught the exact same thing. The theory of evolution teaches us that. Every organism attempts to protect itself to its best capacity.

I saw a video awhile back, (I don't remember the speaker), about one man's theory about the future of the human race. Historically, he said, humans always extended their compassion to the levels of how far they could see or travel. A villager would be able to empathize with someone in the community but would just as easily cut off the head of a rival community. As we evolved technologies and systems that allowed us to extend our reach, learn about new cultures, feel sorry for that kid in Africa and pay a random organization to offer him 1 square meal a day for a year, so have the enemies of that very technology in order to retain control, retain power by curbing the biggest threat to the most unnoticed and underrated enemy.

Then the internet came along. The one abstract entity that is all pervasive and all encompassing. It came along and quietly gained power. Its enemies were too unaware of this seemingly harmless beast that seemed to offer more ways to make money than snatch that very right from corporations and organizations. It lay unobserved and un-controlled for over a decade and not unlike other mistakes control-seekers have made, it very soon became a monster. A monster that was going out of control. Egypt, Sudan, Occupy Wall street, everyone was subject to it's growing power to let information and timely news seep through artificial boundaries and draw support from the, until now, most unexpected corners of the world.

So here we are. A race that, in all fairness to its complexity, is probably the only species that shows such a large disproportion in its evolution. Consider a hypothetical person (called, simply, A) who is the embodiment of human evolution, with all of his/her genes at just the right point in its mutative process.
Consequently, consider the opposite spectrum of that (called Z). The one individual that has, for reasons completely out of anyone's control, been the "weakest link" of the entire species. Who has the lowest probability of all mankind to have the chance to pass forward his/her genes to the next generation.

All of humanity exists between those two individuals.

A repetition of the same exercise with any other species would almost guarantee to show a much narrower spectrum between the equivalent A and Z.
It isn't all that surprising however. It isn't a very twisted statistical phenomenon that, as we see evolution proceeding at an ever increasing pace, so does the gap between those most and least evolved. A classic rich get richer and poor get poorer phenomenon.
Let's look at another instinctive phenomenon that is more or less taken for granted in the animal kingdom. The desire to protect the weak. That offspring of the evolutionary psyche that serves in the best interest of pro-creation and sustenance.
How would an equivalent evolutionary system be synthesized for a complex being such as humans? For a species as widespread, it would definitely take a means that is efficient, not wasteful and has the power of virality. No other species has as effective a communication and broadcast system as the internet. We created this. Out of our instinctive desire to communicate, we created this exemplary by-product of evolutionary purpose. This rapid communicative tool that knows no geographical boundaries. No bias for race, religion, means or money, caste or even language.
[It must be mentioned that as I sit here in a downtown espresso, right outside was this elaborate rally fighting to curb arms proliferation and strengthen gun-control laws]
And that very tool has come under threat. That one creation of this complex race that does not judge, does not discriminate and does not differentiate between right or wrong, but gives every individual the power to make that decision - is under threat. No one saw that better than Aaron. No one fought for it with as much passion as Aaron did. Putting everything he held dear, at risk of being taken away from him, he fought for a greater cause. One that he believed firmly was going to make the world a better place, if only we could finish the race. A race with no known duration or length, but a race with a finish line nevertheless.
We've had victories in the past. And we've had defeats. But the battle rages on. Lives have been lost.
Careers and families have been broken.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

This very tool has, within it, the power of participation without sacrifice. Never before has there been a cause that allowed the power to give it so much voice. Never before has it been easier to make your voice heard. We as a human race can do better than watch silently while things happen. Every individual has the power to voice his/her opinion and find voices that resonate with the same frequency. But, rightly so, with that freedom to receive, almost anything that the heart desires, comes a responsibility to protect those who uphold its existence. And this beautiful tool, as with anything that resonates beauty within itself, gives us the power to protect itself.

Let's not fuck this up.

Let's not let what happened to Aaron, happen to anyone else. He fought for us, fought for all of us and we weren't there when he needed back. He left us with a place better than what it was when he arrived. But we didn't return that favor. Here's to hoping that there will be many more Aarons in the world. Who pledge to protect everyone that is a part of the whole. The whole that has no form, but forms who we are today. The whole that has existed since the dawn of mankind, but has only come to fruition since the dots were connected. Since the internet was born.

RIP Aaron Schwartz.

Epic proportions

Well. I don't really suck at math. But one thing I really am ashamed of? I learnt every bit of ratio and proportion word for word learning the formulae "by-heart" for the exams. Pretty simple you might say. Not for me. I found calculus a breeze. Not Ratio Proportion (we stray heavily aside from considering probability but that doesn't seem to be in line with the title).

Many many months ago, I had this urge. I couldn't give it meaning. I couldn't give it a voice. But it still gripped me to no end. Many things were changing in my life. My job sucked. My house was a mess. My routines were all messed up (well I didn't have any routines to begin with). I hated my boss. I hated my peers. I had a non-existent life in the work-life balance scheme of things. So it was easy to attribute this gripping feeling to one of those you might say. Things were out of the norm. I was going through hormonal changes. I must have a wild imagination.

Whatever it was, it one day just ... ended. Standing in the Landmark bookstore a short distance away from home on the first floor, somewhere in the 5th or 6th aisle from the entrance - it just ended. Didn't take a moment. Took a few minutes. But it tugged more so than ever before just before it completely ceased to exist.

Completely broke for money, I had decided to visit this, seemingly unrelated to my thoughts then, store, with a few friends. We joked about. Moved around. Separated ways as we moved to our own sections of interest. And yet something seemed to draw me towards it. Made me a little "on-the-edge" that I wasn't getting what I needed. I made my way strolling around until I spotted it. One word just sent a shiver down my spine. The Mahabharath. I didn't think. I don't remember what happened for awhile after. But the next thing I knew, I was sitting on one of the reading couches with a copy clutched in my hand (in retrospect that seems to have been the best choice, for me, of all the editions of the grand epic that was on display that day), and reading incessantly until my girlfriend comes over and expresses her amusement at my choice of reading. It could have been a couple of minutes, a half an hour. I don't know. But I was hooked. The very style in which the epic began. The words. The feelings that it brought out in me.
"How's the book?" she asks me. "Pretty good" I said. I was soon joined by the others who we'd come with. And I just sat. Clutching the book in my hand. Nervous to reveal it to the folks around. I didn't know what to think. I felt this sense of calm come over me. Yet I wasn't sure what it was. I thought it best to keep it down until I could make more sense of it.

"Oooh what's that"

"Shit" I thought and reluctantly handed the book over. "Oh hey, I've always wanted to read this!" Phew. Not as bad as I thought it would get. I wanted the book. I had to have it. It was by far the longest book I have ever read/wanted to read. But I must. But I'm broke. And this thing costs 1.5K!

Dejected, I go back and keep the book back where I found it and we head to the billing section to get everyone else's stuff billed. The girlfriend says to me - "Why don't you get that book?" "Because we don't have the money to spare?" "It's ok baby it's really worth it you know."
I think for awhile and decide. I must have this book. And I run back to get it. As luck would have it, I did buy the book that day and I even found a cheaper paperback by the same author.

I've only begun reading the book a week back. I put it off thus long because I thought, I must read it well. With complete concentration. It isn't a novel. It's a carefully documented piece of literature that speaks volumes about life. That, in all likelihood has been altered over time by the generations it passed by in only verbal communication. Each one adjusting it to one's own whims. A comprehensive collaboration of thoughts and opinions of generations of people over centuries. An epic tale of many characters who lived and fought by their dharma, yet at times seemed to waver. A sort of tale that speaks of idealism and how one always strives for something but probably will never get there in his life time. But how striving matters. It isn't winning or losing. It isn't about wanting or trying either. But about the path that one walks through in his pursuits. About life itself. And what better a guide, a mentor, for someone who sees things in not so dissimilar a way.
I hope to finish the two parts of the book one day. And I might not remember the individual stories or the characters by it's end. But I will definitely remember the lessons learned. The fruit of generations of experience and learning. The greatest story ever told. A story of epic proportions.

Are we there yet?

We pray for our innocent souls, and beg forgiveness for our sins, for our lips shall not halt, nor shalt our fingers stay put, for 'tis our destiny to speak our minds and spill our thoughts, however inconsequential or irrelevant. We pray for our innocent souls, to end this torture of eternal self-expression and hope against hope that one day, we see the light of day, and that the television might become interesting again. Amen.

Yeah, well that was my first entry on this blog, around about 3 years ago was it? Still holds true though. Kinda a shocker for me though. Have I not progressed at all? Is my innocence/naiveness/stupidity not surfaced itself enough to teach me a thing or two in life YET?

Well, let's leave me aside for now. I'm kind of sick of the whole thing anyway. It's all a little too overrated if you ask me. What is life? What is one's purpose in life? Well I'm not signing in blood that my opinions thus far is going to hold true tomorrow. Maybe not even in a few hours. Heck not even by the end of this post even. But that's how life is isn't it? I've always been amused by the number of adjectives one can describe life with. There really isn't any word you cannot use to describe life. How does one really describe one's own then? Cut short the noise from other lives that seem to breathe only too close to your own? Filter out the sense from the non-sense, with the very definition of sense changing by the minute? Move higher and higher up the chain of abstraction hoping that one day you can proclaim "YES! I have found the answer to it all?" How far does one go? Well as you can see, I, to be honest haven't found myself any bit closer to an answer than my similar self was 3 years ago. Nor do I think I will find one 3 years hence.
But one thing's for sure. Whether this blog lives on or not? I'm going to be a heck of a lot better off putting things down here that I read 3, maybe 10 years from now that would allow me to look back and say, hey, this thing never does end, does it? Well not until your skin, flesh and thoughts shrivel up (not to mention other un-mentionable things). But as they say, it isn't the destination but the journey (the destination is very much undesirable in this case), and I choose to pen down every bit of it that passes me by. Be it an itch in my thigh or a stitch in my time ... I have the right to say hey this deserves to go into my blog! Time shall pass by. And so shall other things. But none shall go by me without so much as a consideration as to whether thy moment deserveth to be penned down. Looked back on. Re-lived. Shared. BLOGGED!

Oh holy savior of thy souls. Bless us for this gift we have been given. For you gave us mouths and ears. And we gave ourselves computers and the internet. Amen.

have boredom, will blog...

Soon to come up...useless, pointless, aimless and jobless comments and opinions of the most recent addition to this blog business...u might say I'm a fool for coming in so late...but hey..id like to think of myself as the only one who lasted so long, who stood so steadfast in his beliefs, who vowed never to spend time being jobless on the internet, where few others were so brave...until eventually, during my journey through life, i came to the realization, that endless boredom, mindless boredom, sometimes, can make u eat your own words. And spit our gazillions more.
We pray for our innocent souls, and beg forgiveness for our sins, for our lips shall not halt, nor shalt our fingers stay put, for 'tis our destiny to speak our minds and spill our thoughts, however inconsequential or irrelevant. We pray for our innocent souls, to end this torture of eternal self-expression and hope against hope that one day, we see the light of day, and that the television might become interesting again. Amen.