It's easy to mistake a serious demeanour for a serious mind. But not necessarily pardonable in a thinker. It's easy to lose oneself in the world we perceive and build walls of, around us. It's not necessarily the truth. What then is the truth? What we perceive is our truth. But how sharp our perception is, depends on how far we're willing to go for the truth.
Art is beautiful, cinema and theater sublime. Music is divine. But life...is a study. It can only be understood by experience. To think most of us (me included) are so blithely unaware of the lives around us. Of the causes, people and issues. It's easy to be swayed by the glossy section of the magazine / paper and read about the latest on Katrina and Ranbir's promotional relaionship, or talk about Angelina's pout. It's hard to take our attention off the gloss and shimmer and force ourselves to look at the people in Vaddithandra and their plight. It's hard to be concerned about some fishing village folk in Santabommali. It's so easy to forget that we ARE a part of all that's happening to them by not being involved and voicing our opinions. By not using our independent free mind to understand all of this, we're against them, by default, and pro - industrialisation at any cost. We see the majesty of a factory. We think man has achieved so much. We forget the lives at the grassroot and force our views of development on them by leaving them no choice. We believe we can decide better, what their lives should be and if they're worth anything and whether they need be included in the whole debate or not (it is after all, their land, their source of livelihood and their life). But these don't seem important. Not in the path of development.
And we're living in a democracy. An ineffective, inefficient democracy which a substitute to monarchy only in that the royalty has been replaced by the vested interests of conglomerates. And most of us are still only concerned about the ipad / tablet / xbox.. It's a pity our choices and lifestyles impact the livelihoods of others even whose existence needs to be forced into our awareness, let alone conscience.
