On people and their economic behavior

If only I could draw well, I will paint this picture of our existence - a human pyramid shaking and shivering under its own weight, in a pool of billion lives. With every new level, new people are added to the bottom - 'initiated' as they say. Those at the top, with so much as a sneeze, can cause a tremor at the base. They at the top suffer from vertigo. Some of them can't wait to sling their backpacks across their shoulders and head East. While others are proud to have the responsibility of millions of lives in their hands. They launch rockets and conduct air raids to tell us the same. And someone like Bush turns up and does a clown dance for some years before the bottom layers gather enough strength and conviction to shake the pyrimady arse and topple him. Much more than any conceivable number will either want to go up or get out. I think that gives the society the flux.. the fluidity which we experience. And those who sit on the sidelines, analyzing, preparing younger ones for the task ahead - the academia.. how minutely focused their microscopes are. They will fish out the motives and marginal utilities of the louse crawling on the head of the person(1, 10^5, 10^2) (coordinate). Or they will dig out neurons of their fellow specie-men to point to the golden colored region which gives rise to consciousness - that will make them happy. Or better still tighter bounds to minimize error in transmission across murky channels - that is their purpose.

To be sure let us see if there is any such thing as 'economic behavior' (for we are quite sure that there are entities called 'people'.. some may want to disagree.. they may). 'Behavior' is a term loosely defined as the way or manner in which we act/react in a given situation. The adjective 'economic' tries to classify - to delineate a smaller set of behaviors so to speak, which pertain to how people act/react in matters concerning money. Now this 'economic behavior' has a rich and complicated history. We've all learnt about barter and gold coins and silver coins and so on. Either referring to direct acquisition of commodities or to attaining means to achieve them, we have here a myriad number of activities in which we have engaged as a specie. But what we're witnessing probably is the increasingly complicated nature of these activities - where between the commodities I want and the commodities I earn, the distance is continuously increasing.

What if any is the purpose of economics? Not as a field of study but as a part of our lives as 'homo sapiens'. From the richest to the poorest - human beings can survive on a decent three meals in a day and a shelter - an oft repeated 'truth' about our condition. Surely for 50% of us, our economic behavior has very little relevance to the fulfillment of these necessities. And we all know this as a fact. Curiously what keeps us going is our idea about a decent life a decent education for our children (or ourselves) and decent art and decent sports and so on. A man on the street will want to be in a house, the man in a house will want to be in a mansion, the man in a mansion will be ready to emigrate and the man in a mansion on top of the world.. well he would be searching for some sort of truth either in his own power or in the power of some other worldly being. I'm not saying that our greed in insatiable. Its not greed its a fear to be 'not left behind'. Our whole lives are a game of 3 - 'past-present-future', 'hell-earth-heaven', 'worse than us-us-better than us' and so on. And we would want an upward sloping curve - always going up and up tending to the august elysian heights. Most of us would want to look back and say - hey there, we've grown or we've become more mature or more rich or more 'human'. And if not all, we would want to cash in some green in at least one of the scales - others' or our own invented ones. Why is it that we can't sit still? Lost in the dialectics between idealism and realism, we're never sure of our own worth without any reference point. All we can say is that an elephant is surely bigger than the ant and we are somewhere in between. And we would rather be the elephant or the ant.. whichever is judged better by ourselves and/or others. And that is pragmatism for you :).

And the costs are too high if the pyramid topples. The US economy is the case in point.. almost everyone seems to be bailing it out.

Only those who are completely selfish or completely selfless can be 'saints'. Our inability to be either puts us in 'it' - whatever we may believe 'it is'.

The whole humanity seems to be heading towards a cacophonous orgasm.
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PS: The views are completely personal. As always any theory will have certain assumptions and generalizations. Its after all a function of the looking glass or a vantage point we choose. We cannot see the whole of Earth in one go.. (like not by one pair of eyes) and describe it.

paperback philosopher

I met him on the street once. Old he was. I helped him cross the street. I asked him what he did in his spare time. He said he started his career as a ring master in circus.

'The excitement of the scene, the meekness of the ferocious animal (who by the way would never hurt) yet the credulity of the audience.. they made an impression on me,' he said while gesturing a motorbike to stop. He continued walking casually recounting his tale, I meanwhile stole a glance at the biker. 'As I was saying', he lingered, 'That made an impression on me.. and I started writing quotations for newspapers. To my surprise they became popular. So I wrote on and on and then they collected it all and made a book out it.. see.' He showed me the book.

By this time we had crossed the road. To be polite I read one or two and praised the content. It was a sweet little pocket book - the kind in which one gets Gita and Bible these days. He was almost gloating about it 'I always thought I'm no good, Nothing,' he mused, 'but now look at this thing. I feel I've done my bit'. I asked him if he believed in God. He said he didn't.

He asked me what I did. I said 'Presently I'm trying hard to not become what I despise. Yet I end up not despising what I become.' He looked bemused. 'So,' I continued, 'I talk in paradoxes and write in metaphors, preach faith to apostate and doubt to believers.'

'You astound me,' he said somewhat taken aback. 'Don't worry about it,' I said, 'Pressing his hands between mine. You don't see Him but you see me, don't you, flesh and blood. I've a better technique and wouldn't be as conspicuous.'

PS: have to work on it a little more

the sea

Waves are the reality of the sea. Touching the shore and leaving, rising and subsiding, moving in a rhythm.. like the hands of clock. Curiously entwined by chance, their fate appears fixed, determined.. the hands will always move, so will the waves..

But the tides are a reality too... the sea does not relent to the determinism of waves. Propelled by some outward force it rises up tearing the surface... oh the majestic rise. For that moment it exists out of time.. out of its own fate..

The sea in a tide is a bearer of all forces within and without... the sea in a tide is also akin to the human spirit manifesting the power of ideals and beliefs.. of our collective consciousness itself....of the desire to make more out of existence.. an existence which is inextricably tied to time..

So are these lines just a means to vent the spirit.. the truth in them is contextual.. even incidental. So are most of our endeavors... the moment we believe, the moment we look at life as something more than what it is.. we become wrapped in our spirit.... and we can ebb and fall, or continue to rise.. we will always be more than ourselves...and we will surely find beauty here and some alluring charm..

Self thus effaced by the collective, willingly submits to it.. so will you and so will I.. Time and again we'll attempt to capture the truth that will always evade us. For that is but one truth... But in that attempt we will be unleashed by and will in turn unleash something beautiful, even marvelous... And just as the grand monuments, growing out of the surface of the earth, later serve as a tomb to cherish the power that creates them - our attempts too will survive long after we cease to, as a reminder of the power that resided within us and about us..

But even without their realizing it, the lives which have been so possessed by these spirits find a strange solace in the rhythms of the clock. There is something about the waves too.. and about the beating of my heart.. I'm attuned here.. one here.. will always be, even when the spirits cease to visit and the forces wither away..

Don't know if I wrote this for you or for myself..

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And there are these evenings when you just can't do anything. You fix your mind on something, something unattainable at that instant and lament your fate. Or go off to sleep which is in most cases a smart thing to do. But lying awake in half sleep listening to music which seems to dissolve at times in the background, one feels unhinged. Like for real unhinged. And its so addictive at times, I would wake myself up and be in this state intentionally. Once one has given up on alcohol one finds other ways to be delirious I guess :).

And I wait for inspiration in these moments. Something which I would create or want to create. Something which has been taking shape in my mind for a long time. Alas all that comes out are fragments of ideas in grammatically incorrect compositions.

Sometimes I envy people who can create things so easily. Like with a stroke of a brush they breathe life into paper, with eloquent sentences they create life size characters. An exquisite ease or an arduous struggle I don't know.