SELENE’S BOW

My dear, perceptive reader, I come back to you today with an incident, an anecdote, if you will, which set off a rather…….shall we say, unusual chain of thought within me.

About half a week ago, I saw one of the most beautiful sights of my life, a lunar rainbow!! The light of the moon differentially refracted by the mass of the clouds framing her face, creating a ring of colours, like a halo around a saint, only this was no ordinary saint I saw that day, assuredly, it was a bearer of the passion.

But, unfortunately, I had on me at that time, no way to capture the moment. So, trudging back to my room, I put out my feelers by means of that most loyal of friends, Google!! On a whim, I searched for rainbow paintings, and found not a few, but absolutely NO paintings with a lunar rainbow as the artists muse. So I asked myself, as I ask you now, my dear reader, why the lopsidedness? Why are the bursts of vibrant colour considered the sole prerogative of Helios, who cries rivers of gold? Why is Selene (Luna of the Romans) relegated to a backseat, her display of colour considered merely an aberration, something adorable, no doubt, but yet not grand or worthy of immortalization through the hands of an artist? Why must this fairest of the gods; pale maiden with the very stars as her freckles on her fair visage, sister of the Sun, mistress of the silver chariot, dispeller of the dark, temperamental as a teenager and yet mature and consistent as a matriarch, why must she be marginalized thus? This favorite of many poets, especially love poets bathes the world with her silvery light, especially beautiful when it caresses the water of a brook, bringing the feeling of romance. It is said that Selene's moon rays fall upon sleeping mortals, as her kisses fell upon her love, Endymion.

Why do we express awe at the sun and its majesty and yet treat the moon as naught but a toddler, to be coddled but yet not taken seriously? All this does is expose a larger malaise in society, our inability to break free of the bias of the collective consciousness. We form our opinions based on the opinions of our fathers and are very reluctant to discard and/or change them.

To be very honest, I am afraid of the sun. The idea of so much power in the hands of something so temperamental, so unstable terrifies me. And yet, on the other hand, Selene like a mother comes out and coddles me each night. Even on the nights she is absent, I still feel her presence, and know she is watching over me and smiling. Her power is subtle, a far cry from the blazing infernos of her brother Helios, and yet it is no less strong. She is, after all, the mistress of the waters. From her immortal head a radiance is shown from heaven and embraces earth; and great is the beauty that arises from her shining light. But then one wonders, why is she not accorded the same status in the Pantheon as is her brother? Is it just a lack of fear, a narrowness of perspective? Why, my dear reader, does one not realize that the light of the moon, while just as useful as that of the sun, poses no threat at all to us. It is a benign light, a light born of the smile of a lovely lady, a fair goddess. And yet, she looks down upon us and weeps, but even in her weeping she gives to you, my dear perceptive reader, her “Rivers of Silver”.

BELLUM OMNIUM CONTRA OMNES

My dear, perceptive reader, one of the immortal classics of socio-political literature is Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, written in 1651. The purpose of this post is solely to discuss the aforementioned phrase, famous today perhaps in a context different from that which Hobbes originally intended. Literally translated, it means ‘The war of every man against every other’. Hobbes intended it to refer to the concept of civil war, and how a strong governmental figure was required to counter these particular urges of man. I shall add a twist to the interpretation, and use it to discuss the concepts of Darwinian evolution and the eternal battle of idealism vs. realism.

Most believe the concepts of Darwinian evolution to be the ultimate expression of anthropocentrism, and thus it is consciously rejected by many ecologists, deep or otherwise. On the other hand, phrases such as ‘for the greater good of the species’ give middle aged couch potatoes and emotionally repressed housewives a warm glow in the belly. It is a comfortable thought, is it not? Unfortunately, the reality is as far removed from this as the earth from the sun. To quote again from Hobbes, ‘The life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’. A human thinks first ONLY of himself, for himself. Here, we see a shift from anthropocentrism to egocentrism, in a manner of speaking (I know the parallel is not exact, but it is the best I could come up with). Even those few ‘enlightened’ souls (note the inverted commas) who claim to put society over their selves are only deluding themselves. No one, and I mean no one, is going to act for the greater good if it harms them. It’s just not done. Not only is it impossible, but quite frankly, it is inconceivable. This is the proverbial ‘Tragedy of the Commons’. Once more, I am certain I am in for a load full of protests from all quarters, but I believe I owe it to myself.

My dear reader, I’m fairly certain that by now, you have figured out how I plan to extrapolate the argument to the idealism vs. realism debate. Nevertheless, I shall take the liberty of boring you a little further, more for my own benefit than yours. Idealists seem to believe that life is a bed of roses, devoid of thorns, of course. They actually believe that faith can move mountains. However, using a truncated form of Hobbes again, ‘The life of man is solitary’. Each man follows his individual path in life, independent of any and all others. And, considering for instance, India herself, that’s more than a billion paths. Now, as any statistics student would easily tell you, the larger the cardinality of any sample space, the more consistent the statistical mean will be, more immune to the minor deviations introduced by the vagaries of individuals. My point is this; the mean path which, in turn, is the path of the entire country, is invariant, regardless of the actions of any person. This is what sociologists call ‘Social Inertia’, and in a society the size of our country, that inertia is immense!! While we have all the power to choose our own actions and influence our own fates, the same is not true for the whole. More on this, you my dear reader must have already seen here.

With this, my dear reader, I shall take your leave for now. I hope I have impressed upon you the wisdom of Thomas Hobbes and the seeming futility of idealism (note that I mentioned ‘seeming’, more on that later). As always, I look forward to your views on the matter. Farewell… until the next time we meet!!

A BREACH OF COURTESY? A PARADIGM SHIFT?

My dear, perceptive reader; I come back to you today with a short post about a little anecdote. Earlier today, as I was walking out of the classroom, I failed to notice a lady acquaintance of mine. Well, to cut a long story shot, she hailed me back and after a few polite exchanges, we said our goodbyes. No big deal, say you? Perhaps. But one point struck me. A few decades ago, in the Victorian Era, it would have been considered a heinous breach of courtesy to ignore a lady, no matter how concerned you may be with other, pressing matters. And yet, here, it was brushed aside as though it was nothing.

Perhaps my judgment is warped by the fact that I read too many novels by Victorian authors when I was younger, but those little niceties, quaint and outdated as they may be, have always appealed to me. As I cycled away from the aforesaid encounter, the delayed realization struck me!! Something had definitely changed. But what was it? Was it me? Or is it society has ‘evolved’ sufficiently to ignore such common courtesies? Is this the outcome of the ‘Neo-Hellenistic’ revolution?? Am I alone in having a problem with the turn of events?

With that thought, I leave you, my dear, perceptive reader. As always, I invite you to form your own opinions, and request you to share them with me.