Crime and Punishment (CraP)

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

- George Bernard Shaw

Morals – principles regarding goodness and badness of human behaviour, distinguishing what’s right and what’s wrong. What’s right? And what’s wrong? Who makes the decision? If you are thinking it’s the law, think again. Because the law tells us what’s “legal” and what’s “illegal”. Not what’s “right” and what’s “wrong”.  So who else? “The inner conscience”, says the guru. “God”, says another one, “Everything what should and should not be done is written in the Bible/Quran/Gita/etc etc.” The third guru smiles and says, “You both are speaking the same thing. After all, God exists within us. Our inner conscience is God. That’s what helps us follow the right path. We must keep this conscience pure of all evil.” The third guru is said to be the most learned.

First, let’s reflect on the origin of the words “right” and “wrong”. How do we get to know if a thing is wrong or right? Let’s start right from birth. Our first teachers are our parents and close relatives. “No” means wrong, “yes” means right. At first, we are a bit inquisitive. Our brain wants to know. Why “no”? But as we age, our brain becomes duller - less curious and more accustomed to just accept the no’s. And now, instead of questioning the no’s, the no’s are already accepted to be right and the “developed brain” starts thinking of reasons behind the no’s. And it does find them. Secondly, there is the law – of course. A written set of rules telling us what’s “wrong” and what’s “right”. I think we have two words for that – “illegal”, for what’s against the law and “legal” for everything else. These two words, I understand. As for “wrong” and “right”, I still don’t.

Let’s get this straight. What keeps us from doing “wrong” things? Our inner conscience? I have no idea what that means. Maybe the “guru”s do. Maybe they have reached a higher level and have evolved into homo conscientus or something. Or maybe, they have just glorified and hyped a simple emotion existing within all of us – fear.

Just sit back and think for a while. What’s the first thing that stops you when you know you are going to do a thing you shouldn’t be doing? I think it’s fear. The racing heartbeat, productive sweat glands, running pulses and disapproving brain can be given the name “conscience” but it can also be called fear. Or more specifically, the fear of getting caught. I am not completely denying the existence of morals or conscience. I am simply saying that like it or not, it is the fear of getting caught which has given birth to all these overrated words.

This brings us to the main topic – Crime and Punishment. Two inversely proportional concepts. What stops people from committing a crime? The fear of punishment. The higher the punishment, the less probability of people committing the crime. For God-fearing people, this punishment can be from God Him/Her/Itself and for others it can be from any other source, especially the law. The lesser the chances of getting caught and being punished, the more people will tend to commit the “crime”.

Religion

“When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called Insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion, it is called Religion.”

- Robert M. Pirsig.

I don’t get it. Why do we have to conform to boundaries, rules and regulations? Yes, okay, there are a basic set of morals – don’t kill, don’t steal which make life easier to live. But religions?

My request to all the “gurus” out there – if you have certain rules, beliefs you would like to stick to, keep it to yourselves, don’t impose it on others.

And my request to all those listening to the gurus – these gurus are very good. They have a lot of knowledge and experience and you should always try to take the most of it. But don’t blindly follow everything they say. Think. Let your brain follow your own religion. Don’t let them tame your brain and decide the boundaries for you. You decide the boundaries for yourself. Or better, don’t have any boundaries. Nature will decide them for you, just like water on the floor.

Let’s make things clearer with a simple experiment. Take a glass of water. Pour it on the floor. See the water spread. Enjoy the beauty of it. If it doesn’t annoy the people around you, do it again. If it does annoy them, don’t give a damn, still do it. Every time, the water spreads in a different pattern in different directions. That’s the beauty of nature - the abstraction. And that is how one should live one’s life – without any boundaries. Stretching one’s water in every direction – more in the direction one wants to go, less in the direction one doesn’t want to go. The water on the floor stops spreading after sometime. That’s when it has reached its maximum point. Similarly, the human brain should be allowed to expand to its maximum potential. Not confined by pouring the water into a well-defined container. That’s when the water is tame, not wild and carefree as on the floor – much to the happiness of the people around you.

And why are people happy being tamed in such a manner? They are not. There is always an underlying frustration, an underlying current of unhappiness in every tamed human brain. That’s when the “gurus” come up with meditation, self-discovery and what-not. Create problems and then solve them. But that’s another subject altogether. Let’s concentrate on the history of the taming of the human brain. It is said that man evolved from apes. Let’s assume that it is true. Apes were wild. Man is civilised. Better word – gives u a nice feeling. The problem is as the brain developed gradually as man evolved, so did the need for boundaries. Humans have an inborn feeling that they should stick to a set of rules and regulations. In other words, lock themselves in a space with boundaries so they don’t go wild again. And thus, religion was born.

Let me tell you why I don’t like the concept of religion. What is religion? It is a set of beliefs. This set will vary from person to person. Everyone has different beliefs, different perspectives. But people have all these well-defined packaged deals (religions) to choose from. Most of us simply follow the religion of the family we are born into. Why? The question arises again. Why define boundaries? Or why follow boundaries set by other people?

This very question had troubled great minds like the Prophet, Jesus, Buddha etc. And so they had come up with their own religions. People of the world, you don’t have to follow their religions, all of you have a brain too, you come up with your own religion. All of you can be Prophets, Jesuses and Buddhas – the only difference is you won’t be famous because there won’t be a group of people following you, they will be busy following their own religions.

What a lovely floor it will be! Liquids of different colours and tastes allowed to spread on the floor all mixing together abstractly – no bottled up containers containing similar liquids. No thinking whether a person is a Christian, Hindu or a Muslim, no wars in the name of religion. In fact, no religion having a name and a group of people following it. Everyone having their own religion and giving it their own names. I am John, and I follow John. End of story.

Introduction

“There is no truth. There is only perception.”

- Gustave Flaubert

I am not much of a writer. I know, sounds discouraging, you sit down, start reading a blog and the first thing you read is that this guy is not much of a writer. Yeah, life's like that. I am more of a reader and thinker. Yeah, I think a lot. Mostly, I think of what not to think. People think a lot. You know, mountains of molehills. I am the other way round. I think that people shouldn't think this much. Thinking too much makes us cross the line that separates what's real and what's not. Emotions, grudges, biased opinions start creeping in when people start thinking a lot. I know what you are thinking. How ironical it is for me to say don't think too much when I myself am just thinking and going on ranting about what to think and what not to think. Pretty hypocritical of me to do that. Come to think of it, who isn't a hypocrite? Everyone's always preaching about something or the other. I thought, hey, let me give it a try for once.

You may have noticed by now how bad a writer I am. I think I suffer from ADD in writing. Can't stick to writing and focusing on a part of the topic for long. I change subjects pretty quickly. I will try though, for the sake of my readers. The problem is that thoughts are random. Much easier to think. To put these thoughts into words and frame proper sentences to convey what you exactly want to say is quite a daunting task. I appreciate all the bloggers out there. Hope I will be able to write more freely and expressively after I spend a few days in the blogosphere. As for now, hello people, thanks for reading and see you later.