Sartre and some faux intellectuals – An obnoxious view on obnoxious people

            

 

Recently, I re-read the Wall by Sartre. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I enjoyed it so much. Honestly it makes me laugh which is kind of cool because at the heart of all Sartre’s writing is so much despair.

You know the whole existentialism philosophy deal…

I have a problem about all these movements though. (I have a lot of problems)

I am not even a philosophy major and maybe that’s why. Never took a single such course in my life and never will. I’ve read a bit of my share of philosophy and you have to really sift through all that junk.  What really annoys me about all this is its pretentiousness!

I guess coming from a science background, I’d rather hear things about what people do.  If there’s a contradiction between what a person says and what a person does, then the essence of what they say is lost on me.  Show me your faith by your actions… 😀 😀 😀 (pssst it’s a reference to James)

Some of these guys just go on and on about some absolutely drone things.

And at the end of a chapter, it may hit you like a gong what they’re talking about but because your brain is so fried up with all those meaningless words they throw at you, you’ll feel like you’re hearing all this for the first time.

You get me?

They trick you into thinking you never knew of these ideas before.

Foucault was especially horrible. When you get past a really long winded sentence, you feel like putting down the book and going ‘’ casse couille.”

Ok it’s cool you made some great observations about society and humans. But what have you done about it? Have you presented any model that could change an aspect of society?

Oh right, I forgot life was meaningless and we should just be in mindless pursuit of our sexual fulfillment.

Oh and curiously most of these thinkers happen to be French.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I have nothing against them. I enjoyed reading Sartre and Camus. Just up till that point.

Like how Camille Paglia put it, she never once found a sentence that interested her among modern French philosophers (I think she called Foucault a bastard).  Though she praised Sartre and Simone De Beauvoir…

 

I have a problem with Simone’s line of thinking too.

I have a problem with almost everything.

I have a problem with the exclusive club of faux intellectuals.  I just find that detrimental in the long run. It’s basically a great excuse to be self absorbed.

Walk the talk. Do the deed. Say what you will. It’s that simplicity we need.

I guess living in a third world country with third world problems you tend to see things in a less romantic way.

The whole meaningless aspect of life was not something new to me.

The fact that you as an individual, have control over your actions and what you decide to do with your life, is something I endorse.

I’ll end this with quotes from the Bible. (Ecclesiastes)

I was determined to learn the difference between knowledge and foolishness, wisdom and madness. But I found out that I might as well be chasing the wind.

 The wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.

I have seen everything done in this world, and I tell you, it is all useless. It is like chasing the wind.  You can’t straighten out what is crooked; you can’t count things that aren’t there.

(If this post seemed vitriolic, I assure you I edited it many times.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Man

Yo Adrian! 🙂

Too many times, women complain about being bracketed. The whole ”I am a mother. I am a housewife. I am a CEO. But at the end I am a woman” Is this some marketing ad tagline? I don’t remember but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.

And newsflash women, men get bracketed too. You know, the whole ”father. husband. cowboy ” etc. deal?

But since I am a woman, and since I had a bit of time on my hands, I’ll talk about the men I like.

After discussions with my friend who is also going to start writing this blog (whose posts on this will be put up shortly) we discovered our ideal man was Rocky Balboa. Which is kinda cool, because who wouldn’t want to be with a boxer with a heart of gold?

His determination and his spirit. His kindness and his dignity.   Wow!  (If you haven’t seen Rocky, you should. Now)

Yet, however, and in recent interactions, I’ve come across a sort of male I will label as this – the Wussy Man.

I googled the Wussy Man and found some funny dating-advice sites and I laughed for an hour.  The wussy man according to them is a ”nice guy” who sucks up to women.  Pffffft. No. What?!

(I thought I’d share a few links but then decided against it because they’re all wrong, according to the semifeminist. If you need ”real” advice that could ”powerfully” change your life, keep watching this :p)

You really want to know how to spot a wussy man?

Then here are a few characteristics of the Wussy Man. Keep your eyes peeled and if there are more, you can tell me!

1. Lack of Honesty –  He doesn’t say as he does, and doesn’t say what he does. A bunch of white lies and more.
2. He puts down others to make himself feel better – Need I say more?
3. Lack of Courage-  This one is obvious! He’ll run away from a fight and from being challenged. He won’t stand up to others for what he believes. He hides in a little shell
4. Two-Faced – He behaves differently with the same person in a different environment. In either case, he’s not respecting the person.
5. Jealous- He gets jealous of everything. Poor self esteem is at the root of it

Note that a gentle, quiet and sensitive person is not to be confused with being weak or wimpy. In fact I cherish those qualities in people, because as you get to know them, you’ll be amazed at the wonderful snippets of wisdom you glean from them.

However unfortunately, you might have to wade through a bunch of wusses to find that Rocky Balboa.

Much love and peace! 🙂

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The Indian Woman

My first blog entry, ever , was about why I wanted to write one.

And I went on about how I was a Christian, how I considered myself feminist, or as my friend joked, a semi feminist.

But I missed out a crucial part of my identity. I am an Indian woman. (A 20 year old Indian woman to be more specific.)

Now, I understand how some people hate adding labels to themselves. Stereotypes! Typecast! etc etc. At least that’s what most celebrities in interviews say.
However I have to ask this question. How many of us can actually escape those tags that seem to follow us?  Let’s face it. Since the time we were born, we were categorized, arranged and identified. We were given an identity. A label.

It’s nice when people pretend to go beyond all that. But at the heart of it is hypocrisy. I am not afraid to say I belong to a certain camp or I believe in a certain view.

When  you have the privilege of expressing yourself, go ahead and do it. If you lack tact, you will bear the consequence. Action-reaction rules apply.

Now coming to an Indian woman…  There is a difference between the worldview of an Indian woman and that of a woman from, say a developed country.

The challenges are different. Society is different.

Growing up, a young girl in India, ( where as of 2011, the literacy rate for women was around 65.46%) I was privileged.

The urban cities, the women and the men I got to interact with were educated and smart.

Yet, there is a difference in attitude, an overbearing, nauseating hatred towards women that permeates in our culture.

It doesn’t matter whether you are educated or you are uneducated. A woman is a subspecies, a subhuman.

I have memories, of walking home from school, in a school uniform of all things and older men, workers and hawkers, leering at me.  What angers me the most was, I was a young girl. Now, when I am older, and taller, stronger and better, I hardly get those looks. When I was younger, I felt ashamed. I would feel angry and yet I was helpless.

What could I do? Turn around and yell at some guy for singing at me? How is singing really a crime?

Except when the lyrics are from some suggestive Bollywood tune, it would amount to eve teasing. That is an expression used in India for public sexual harassment. Even the word itself is so annoying. Like there’s Adam teasing.

All women in India must have faced this at one point of time.  Eve teasing as a topic is something I would write about in the future hopefully.  At the heart of it, it’s clearly hatred.

Oh and I still have a curfew.

A horrific event that affected the psyche of the Indian woman in a profound way, was the Delhi Rape of 2012. The anger still simmers in most people, though fading.

When I am out too late and all alone, I get calls from my anxious parents. When I take an autorickshaw home from college, I note down the number and send it to my mother.

Now that my parents are overseas, the practices they left behind, still continue. I am cautious, I am aware, I am suspicious.

I learnt that this is a requirement , not just from my parents, but from my experiences.

For everything I am so grateful to my parents. For the sacrifices they made, to ensure my education. The beliefs they instilled in me. They pushed me to believe that I could do anything. No matter what.

Today I am studying to be an engineer. In a mostly male dominated field.  And October 15 was Ada Lovelace Day. The world’s first programmer. Oh yeah, by the way she was a woman. That should be an afterthought.

It’s so empowering to know that my mind and my skills are enough for me. That you can be equal and maybe even more. Sometimes, you don’t need to label yourself to speak out who you are.

Your life, your actions, your decisions. They speak out more for you than any label you can call yourself.

But still, walking down on a lonely road from work, or from school, that gripping fear that someone is watching you, may still exist. That they’re waiting to catch you unaware, so that they would tie you down and terrify you.

That they don’t care that you love God and your family. They don’t care whether you worked hard to achieve whatever you have. You were made a woman, and you have to know your position. You are below them and they can hurt you. What can you do?

Equal rights, equal pay, equal laws. That’s what I want too. I agree with that sisterhood.

But more than ever, it’s that hatred that saddens me. And it has to change. But it’s so deep seated, I wonder if it ever will, or how long it will take. Maybe not in my lifetime.  If I ever have a daughter though, I am going to teach her math and kickboxing.

Why I wanted to write a blog

I spent a lot of time thinking about whether I wanted to start a blog. Like just about everyone else on the internet.
Like everyone else, thoughts and ideas come like light bulbs that switch on and off. (And like everyone else, I seek to capture that light)
But I wanted to write specifically because I love God. And I am a woman. And by the definition of this word ‘’feminist’’, I consider myself one.
So what is feminism?
I rely on Wikipedia for its definitions, which I think is brilliant. One of the best examples of the open and free information movement whose impact is so significant and so deep, I look forward to a wiki article solely on that!
Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women. (The Wikipedia definition)
So that’s about it. I consider men and women equal.
This is unlike the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, drawn up by the French, who shockingly and calmly in their usual manner, failed to address the other half of humanity and conveniently left out some of the most important details.
Oh and one more thing about myself – I just can’t stand pretentiousness. Pretentious philosophies and ideas, they just boil my blood.
So writing a blog is a good forum to vent that out!
But more than my identity of a woman, more than my belief of equal rights, is my identity in Christ.
I can’t escape it.
I’ve tried to push it to the sidelines of my life, tried to act like everything was normal but it wasn’t. I’ve tried to pretend it was just one aspect of my life. That everything was compartmentalized, and being a Christian was just one of those things.
But it’s not.
Christ changed me. Searching and seeking God has been the most amazing mission of my life.
The lessons I’ve learnt, the friends I’ve made, the knowledge I’ve gained. Nothing compares to it
Life isn’t just following the Bible, being good and blah-blah.
It’s so much more. In Christ.
To follow him has been so tough. I die daily.
In the face of a world that increasingly thrives on a ‘’self-first’’ selfish philosophy and its own ideals that keep changing every season, it’s hard to stand up and be a Christian. It never was easy.
People always ask me about my faith, my beliefs and why I hold on to them.
I am always glad to share that. And writing a blog enables me to crystallize all that in a clear written format.
Once you’re in the light, you don’t want to go back to darkness. That sort of darkness is oppressive.
I know because I experienced that.
Oh how I fell!
And how God picked me up and like he always does, glued the pieces of me back together.
This is one of the best lessons I’ve learnt in life –
It’s better to take refuge in the Lord, than to trust men. (Psalm 118:8; interestingly the centre verse of the Bible)
So I can’t leave God ever. I love God.
And the other day someone asked me, if being a Christian feminist was an oxymoron.
Well, the Bible clearly says that , There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galations 3:28)
There is freedom in Christ. Freedom from the changing nuances of the world.
So it isn’t an oxymoron according to me. There are different gender roles in a family and a church and I would like to write about that.
But as a dear Christian friend suggested, I could call myself a semi feminist. He makes me laugh way too often!
I found it funny.
But as I told him, when you sum up all the parts in the end, it doesn’t matter. It may even become more than the whole. (Forgive the musing)
We as women have come a long way from being in Victorian corsets, to funeral pyres practicing sati, and now to voting and being CEOs of major MNCs.
It’s going to be real fun writing about modern day feminism and my take as a Christian on some of that ideology and pop culture.
It’s going to be even more fun talking about the men.
As a Christian too, a lot of stuff about the Bible and other cool things which I’ve discovered but hardly got to share would be put up soon.
Much Love and God bless you.