Balaji Prasad
By Balaji Prasad
“It’s lonely out in space,
on such a timeless flight …
I’m a rocket man,
burnin’ out his fuse up here alone.”
~ Elton John, Rocket Man
In Steven Spielberg’s 1982 movie, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the alien (E.T.) who finds himself on our strange planet is desperate to go home. Could some of us have landed on a strange planet and are unaware that the Earth we were born on is now a distant star? Have we done a “Whodini” and escaped both ourselves and the ground we used to stand on?
“Whodini”
My head in the clouds? Or …
Crowds in my head? Or …
My self in a war? Or …
Has this all gone too far?
And my earth’s now a star?
Clouds bring rain
It never just rains. It pours! And, if one stretches out one’s hand to feel the drops as they fall, it may become clear that these are made of words. And other symbols.
From the moment of birth, we are inundated with words. Some words are real enough. A rose is a rose is a rose, as was famously said. A thorn is a thorn too. When I say “rose” you know what I mean. And when I say, “don’t let the thorn hurt you”, you get that too. But when I say something like “democracy dies in darkness”, what on Earth does that mean!?
“What on Earth” is an expression that is pregnant with meaning. It suggests “real-worldness”. If something is not of this earth, then it could be some vaporous thing: something of no consequence if you wish to live on earth rather than float in some empty space, several light years away from home.
Words can say so many things! And say so many non-things like “democracy”. These are the kinds of things that people argue about endlessly and even kill one another for.
Then there are things that are not clearly things or non-things. A “virus”, for example, is something that most of us have not had the opportunity to see, just as most of us have heard of “ghost” but have never had the pleasure of making an acquaintance with one. How do you know that such a thing exists?
You “know” because someone told you so. Just as you know what the astrologer told you: “when Saturn is in the seventh house and is in alignment with Venus, you will have a great seven-year period during which time you should look to initiate your most important ventures.” Do you trust your astrologer? Do you trust your virologist? Whom do you trust more, and why?
These are all clouds. Word clouds. They drench us with rain, making us wet, damp, soggy, sick and miserable!
But the words don’t come from thin air. They come from people!
The “wizdom” of the crowds
We know some things directly through our senses. Even if there are no words for “cold” or “hot”, our minds can directly sense these. But words like “democracy” have to come to us through indoctrination.
In fact, a lot of our words have seeped into our minds via other people, even from those who aren’t alive. We have received words from Charles Dickens, JFK, Marilyn Monroe and more. And today, we get trained by the good people from CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and others. Not all of this is wisdom. Some of it is plain wrong, for various reasons. Maybe, we should call such wizardry, “wizdom”?
The crowd of people tutor us. They teach us what to fear and what to desire. What a “problem” is and what a “solution” is. What a “cause” is and what an “effect” is. Sometimes, they use words that would take months of study for us to understand. So, we outsource our thinking and setting priorities to those who know these important words that have the potential to change our lives. And, we trust that they have done a fine job of all this, driven by a passion for our collective and individual betterment. Trust!
But the crowd also plays with our emotions. The emotions that swirl around the thing we call our “self”.
Skewed-tons laws of emotion
Emotions are powerful things. Like earthmovers. They literally move the earth. Tons of it. The words don’t matter, the “wizdom” spouters don’t matter, not even the truth matters. Emotion can move a thing from any place to any other place. It does alchemy, converting things into non-things, non-things into things, and all things into nonsense.
Emotions arise when the self wants to do things for its surviving and thriving.
There are innate drives imbued by nature that help the human organism survive. When these are threatened, emotion is the fire that kicks in, corrals and prioritizes all available resources, and saves the day.
But there are also things that the “wizdom” of the crowds has indoctrinated us with, as well as the mountains of words and word-patterns that have accreted in our minds over time. When these things kick up our survival emotions, there is a battle that ensues inside between nature and nurture.
Who wins – nature or nurture? It depends on the self. Whether you trust the infinite capabilities of nature versus the “wizdom” of crowds and your soup of words, or… you are less impressed by nature.
Balaji Prasad is an IIT/IIM graduate, a published author, SAT/ACT Online and in-person Coach, and K-12 Math Tutor at NewCranium. Contact: balaji.prasad@newcranium.com.
