Musings for a responsible society




Amidst the dark and grey shades increasingly engulfing, invading and piercing deeper and deeper, let me try to enjoy the little smiles, genuine greens, and the gentle breeze. Oh! Creator! If you don't exist, my life...in vain!
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20120916

A letter to myself on this birthday!






Dear Sibichen,

Wishing you a very happy birthday!

Congratulations for your journey through the road less travelled. I read ‘Tomorrow is my birthday’ which you wrote two years back and ‘Today is my birthday’, you wrote last year. But already a few days have passed since your birthday, and still you have not posted anything like that this year. Don’t lose your way! You are on the right track. Follow the calling.

You are now confused! Whom you should listen: the freewill or conscience?

Freewill and conscience need not necessarily be in two distant realms where there is no mutual reproach or approach.  I know your question: Whether freewill should be subjected to the dictates of the conscience? Can the conscience issue prescriptions and proscriptions subject to the cultural and structural predispositions, if not biological and emotional predispositions? Freewill cannot be assumed to be a licence to act in response to the cathectic interests. Similarly, even when the inclination to act in a particular manner is guided by cognitive stimulants, it would not be necessarily justified. Thus there is an inherent dissonance between freewill triggered action and reaction and conscience triggered response.

Human, being the superior creation, has been given the power to act according to his freewill, of course within the parameters and boundaries set by immediate kith and kin, social networking circles, and the state. But it is a fact that there are enough areas in one’s life where none of these boundaries put up any restrictions or obstructions. Your thought processes are totally out of bounds for any external regulation, convention, norms, mores, or proscriptions. May be you would argue that ultimately action and behaviour would definitely be characterized by the above thought process and there could be restrictions at that level. It may also be argued that the thought processes triggered by freewill rather than conscience, very subtly influences the outward actions, though the true nature and dimensions of such action may not be very apparent to others. But the truth is that, the intention and character can be very obvious to others, may be almost immediately to those who are more intimate and to others if they are exposed to the person for a fairly long time. I don’t say that this situation is always an embarrassment. It can be an embarrassment only when the freewill and the conscience are positioned at rigidly and mutually exclusive realms without being complementary and supplementary to each other.

By this, I don’t mean that conscience is superior to freewill or vice versa. This depends on

20120912

Ordinary person; extraordinary life: A simple real life story for aspiring managers


Sibichen K Mathew

 
   
C.P Shrimali, son of Damodar  Lal Srimali was in Class 6. The chubby boy beamed with joy when his classmate distributed fountain pen to all his close friends on his birthday. He proudly attached the pen to his pocket and ran to the house immediately after the school. He wanted to show the pen to his siblings. The siblings were happy to see Shrimali’s new pen and they took turns to see it. In the night, when the father returned from work after writing the accounts for about seven shops from 7am to 9.30pm, he spotted a new pen with Shrimali.

He asked gently: “Dear son, I see a new pen with you. A very beautiful one. Where did you get it?”

Shrimali said: ‘Raj was celebrating his birthday today and he gave a pen to each of his close friends as a gift.’
“Such an expensive pen?” Shrimali’s father asked. 

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