Evasion

Thinking is man's only basic virtue, from which all the others proceed. And his basic vice, the source of all his evils, is that nameless act which all of you practice, but struggle never to admit: the act of blanking out, the willful suspension of one's consciousness, the refusal to think - not blindness, but the refusal to see; not ignorance, but the refusal to know. It is the act of unfocusing your mind and inducing inner fog to escape the responsibility of judgment-on the unstated premise that a thing will not exist if only you refuse to identify it, that A will not be A so long as you do not pronounce the verdict "It is." Non-thinking is an act of annihilation, a wish to negate existence, an attempt to wipe out reality. But existence; reality is not to be wiped out, it will merely wipe out the wiper. By refusing to say "It is," you are refusing to say "I am." By suspending your judgment, you are negating your person. When a man declares: "Who am I to know?" he is declaring: "Who am I to live?"

(I think Ayn Rand wrote that. Found it on the net and am thinking about it. I am a certified Evader and this is like a slap on my face. Hoping to find a valid counter argument. This is going to be a slap-fest)

A scary bedtime story

My cousin has a son. He is three years old, give or take a month. He is a sweet kid. A little hyper but children these days are like that. Must be the sugar. I was sixteen before I ever stayed up till 10. A rare occurrence that happens on the eve of exams. Otherwise I was an early to bed, early to rise kind of child. Anyway, this three year old nephew of mine couldn't be made to sleep before 11. Typically, it involves my cousin asking, cajoling, pleading, begging and then shouting, yelling and finally making it up with a bedtime story. The bedtime story she told her son (did I tell you he is three) was this:

You know what happened today? There were several motorbikes parked outside my office. And you know there are lines within which one must park their vehicle. But today, many bikes were parked haphazardly. And then the police came. They came with a big tow truck. And they towed
away all the bikes that weren't parked properly. One of my friends' bike was towed too. And the policeman said that he had to come to the station to pick it up. So everyone whose bikes were towed away went to the police station.

At the police station, the big policeman asked these people for their licence and Registration papers. He asked all TamilNadu registered vehicle owners to wait a little longer. And you know the friend I was telling you about, his vehicle had a TN plate. So he was made to wait and then the policeman made him show his hands and bet him with a big stick. He made him say that he would park properly henceforth. And he bet him again. It was painful and my friend started to cry. The policeman bet him till his hands bled. Only then did he let him take the bike home. So, will you park your bike properly?

The rendition ofcourse, was interspersed by threats of the policeman coming to pick up kids who refused to sleep. I swear to you I am not making this up.

What does this tale tell us? What moral lessons does the kid learn from it apart from one has to park their motorbikes in the allotted area? Perhaps, we learn that we must change our plates when we move states. (And we wonder why people are prejudiced!!??)

Granted that not every bedtime story has to have a moral or something. But what happened to the good old Snow White and the seven dwarves? Or the Tortoise and Hare or the Crow and the clever fox?

The real question however is... what are we doing to our children?