Most of us, if not all, are proud of the work we do ... many things we have done in the past .... the differences we make in the lives of our own, our near & dear, world at large ... in our own small ways (wonder, if any one can truly be happy & content at hurting others)
Yet, we find ourselves caught in the active & endless pursuit of happiness .... Is that not within us? ... Easy to preach but difficult to practise.... Being content with whatever is as good or bad as being complacent ... This is what scriptures, whatever religion or philosophy, talk about .... but does not motivate any action?
We find people working with conviction .... no matter what happens .... conviction in the knowledge, conviction in what we believe in, conviction in what preach .... practise whether the world adores or not .... yet care for the world around ... help the world around in their own small ways .... They are the people who are respected .... They are the people who are remembered ..... yet they do not do whatever they do for the purpose of being respected or remembered .... well, there are bogus ones as well ... but then they get exposed in the long run or they live in a perpertual fear of being exposed
What made me write all this is the news of sudden (because I had no clue of her life/illness) demise of M S Subbulakshmi, well-known carnatic musician of our times .... She was truly a legend ..... Though I do not know her in person .... Somehow, some image is engraved deep in my heard with whatever folklore I have heard of about her ..... It makes my heart feel heavy .... Have we lost something?
But then, what is reassuring is that a world has a way of repeating itself .... proving the basic values one stands by .... own own convictions and living as per those convictions ... yet causing harm to none .... being good wherever one can .... even when goodness is perceived as a weakness ..... She may not have faced all these and if she has or now, I shall never come to know .... nor am I interested ....
All I seek to reassure myself is that there is still a place in the world for human values .... and based on my conviction on those values, the respect for the fellow human lives being a key one at that, I dedicate myself to those values, as a homage to the parted soul .... no matter whatever scientific developments happen, no matter how threadbare we study human emotions & thoughts, no matter dissect human ethics & values, no matter how we seek to constrain humans through "well-defined" processes in the name of scientific management ....
I am not saying that goals are orthogonal ... often they are not .... but yet if I need to take a single dimensional view, I would be with human values
