Drifting

I am travelling. I have travelled thousands of miles and I am not yet at the destination. When I reach Melbourne tomorrow morning; I would start planning for another journey back home on the 2^nd of June. Does Melbourne qualify to be a destination at all?  

Are there any destinations at all? This is the story of my life, and I have always been looking for a destination.  When I asked a friend about destinations and destiny the response was unexpected “these are ports of call, where you stop and move on”. I struggled to relate myself to this unusual thought and finally agreed. But I have travelled enough now, both physically and symbolically. My life has been a constant voyage.  I have been to places across the globe, I have met people; made friends and so on but where do I stand today?

I stand at crossroads of life; at one end I am tired of this journey and on the other end I want to live.  I want an anchor in life that will hold me to whatever I am. All these years it never crossed my mind that there could be an anchor that will hold a free soul like I. I was so wrong; there are no free souls; only souls wandering to find a home.  Free souls are just free till they find their ordained home - divine abode.  I am just another ordinary person who wants to hold onto life and needs to reach my abode before the time is over for me. Where and how do I find my address and the anchor that will hold me to it?

I looked for you far and wide. I searched you in the hustle of Time Square in New York, I looked for you on the busy Oxford Street in London, I tried to find you on the Swanston Street in Melbourne, I sought you in the serene mountains of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka, I tried to find you in the depths of Indian Ocean while scuba diving; I did everything to find you but made a fundamental mistake. I didn’t look for you inside me.

When tired and restless I decided to talk to myself. I never did it before – a fatal mistake though.  I asked myself who am I, where am I going, what am I looking for and why can’t I find what I am looking for? Amazingly there were answers to all these questions. Everything was laid out within me. I did not need to travel wide and broad to find them, all my endeavours were such a waste; my anchor, my destination and destiny were all there – right next to me since ages and I was looking at the wrong places.

It is you my friend – nay it is not you it is me – you are just a physical extension of me. I still cannot make out where one ends and the other starts. I know whenever you are sad, angry, hungry or frustrated. I know what are you about to say, I know what do you need and when; and then you know that all too! Do we have a spiritual connection? Are we two or one soul?  I am struggling for answers once again and I know your answers!

This has never happened to me. Never in my life have I been through this. I know nobody will believe me but then who knows me more than I? You – maybe! I am losing it but my loss is my victory, pain is my pleasure, and annihilating myself is making me eternal. Do you know this feeling? No, yes, maybe – look inside you; be honest to yourself and you will figure out what I am saying. Maintain whatever external face you need to keep the world guessing but know thyself.

I discovered the reality in me, made corrections and changed course. I am a different person but you still judge me on the older criterion when you give me deadlines! Don’t you realise these are two different people you are talking about? Haven’t you witnessed the death of a vagrant and birth of a settled, rooted and grounded being? You are right in evaluating me to the standards that I have followed all my life but if I am the person that I think I am, then the deadline is worthless.

I urge you to take it back. Even if you won’t I will pass the test! This is destiny my dearest. We can’t change it. See what my favourite Khayyam has to say here:

The moving finger writes;

and having writ Moves on:

not all your piety nor wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all your tears wash out a word of it

Soul Searching

When I talk to my soul I have to answer difficult questions.

But let’s start some time back when I rediscovered me. Do I have a soul? Yes I have a soul and she and I talk often to each other. We talk intermittently but for hours every day. She once asked do you know about the ragas of classical sub-continental music. Yes I know about the seven notes of the classical Hindustani music. She asked do you know every note is for specific time and mood. Yes I do? But why are you asking? I want to know why you have started your swan song when the time has long gone dear!  Listen to me carefully if you do not heed to my advice you will suffer and will get nothing but pain – a pain that will neither let you live nor die.

Well dear soul you have to answer some questions too. We always existed side by side but we never knew each other. We existed in two separate planes and occasionally came across each other but our interactions were seldom pleasing. I for one was not oblivion of your existence and you, as always knew me but never acknowledged. You are the soul and a superior being so you had the responsibility to find me. I am just a persona so how could I reach out to you? Why did you not find me earlier? She smiled and replied “do you think I did not watch over you”, I was just waiting for you to get to your base. Though it is late in the day that we have united but still is better than never uniting at all. I faithfully watched over you for decades and patiently waited and now you accuse me of ignoring you! Have you ever realised what are you without me? You are just an empty shell nothing more nothing less. Cherish me and thank me for coming to you.

After this strong retort I composed myself and respond to the ragas question. Do you think I am an ordinary being? I was an empty shell but no more. This world and its timings have to follow me and not I. I decide when it is time for a note. While I cannot change the physical universe but this is not the material world where we exist - timings do not matter. We are a universe apart. While the soul can exist without a persona but there is no existence for a person without soul. You are the essence and I am just a casing but together we are the universe. Dear soul do you still want to leave me? She responded angrily did I ever leave you alone that I will abandon you now. It is not me but you who ignored me and refused to acknowledge. I am here to stay but do you have the strength to face the world as a different person – a person with a soul, a conscience and vision? Can you live with this curse of having this ability to see through people all the way to their hearts?

Yes I know this is a curse. I know it is painful. I know it is a difficult road that will lead us nowhere nor will it ever end. But I have known nothing like this feeling - a feeling of being an exalted being. I am on top of this world and the world is moving the way I want it to. Just because I have a soul. I have the power to decide, see, think and act all because of you. Why should I not live with this honour of being a glorious mortal? Do you know you can lose everything that you have including your existence? Ah! What are you talking about? Do I have an existence anymore? When the soul and body came together I was extinct. It is something else not you not I.

She stayed quiet for centuries and asked one day again ‘have you realised what price you are  paying for travelling on this road that is seldom taken by? Yes dear I know I am in pain, enormous pain. The pain of revelation of the universe around me, the pain of seeing the real face of people around me, the pain of seeing humanity stooping to animals, the pain of betrayal, the pain of existence. But dear soul my pain is my existence. It is my life and it is what takes me to the next day. I am alive because I feel the pain. I won’t leave you and will bear the pain instead but will you ever leave me? Have I ever? You know what Omar Khayyam has to say?

“I sent my soul through the invisible,
some letter of that afterlife to spell;
and by and by my soul returned to me,
and answered, "I myself am Heav'n and Hell”

Once you pass the test of hell;I will lead you to heavens my dear!

Happiness

I am struggling. Not that life has been easy so far and I have never struggled before but this is a different struggle; something that I have never experienced before. I am struggling to find a happy face around me. Everyone I see on the roads, markets, restaurants, clubs, offices and homes is unhappy. Everyone is stressed to the extent that they can’t even keep an externally calm persona. I did not believe myself and made a small prayer in my heart to be wrong and asked a friend to find me a happy face in a crowded market place ... lo and behold he couldn’t find one either. I am so disappointed to be right. What an irony being right sometimes too is a disappointment.

The other day when a cab stopped besides my car on a traffic filter, I came across a sad face, saddest that I have ever seen in my life. This is a sixty something years old woman, dumped on the passenger seat along with another occupant struggling to remain seated. I wonder if she was even sixty but looked much older. She was in my thoughts for the rest of the day and I kept on wondering how could one person accumulate so much of sorrow in one life time? .

Driving along the main road just this morning I saw a middle aged man digging a paved road with a sledge hammer that was almost his weight. Those of us who have lifted weights know how difficult it is but this poor sould does not have any choice. Life is difficult here. It is damn so difficult but should this be an excuse for unhappiness.

We, as a society are an unhappy lot. We find reasons to be unhappy rather than being happy. We are so worried about others that we forget ourselves. We live, and die for others rather than us.  Knowing fully well that we can neither make everyone happy nor can we win everything in life; we keep struggling for that elusive end. We are bad losers, anything and everything is a matter of competition When a car overtakes us on the road we enter into a competition. The whole purpose of our existence in to compete and win. In the process we forget our own being. We exist for others not us.

Growing up in the same social environment, the biggest threat that was used to make me confirm was what would others think? You have guests you serve them more than what you serve your own children not because of anything but what would the guest think. I went to an engineering school and when I failed in the first year my parents concern was not me but what would their friends and family think. Why are we so concerned about others?

We are in a constant race with everyone. A cricketer competes in cricket field with other cricketers so does a footballer but we compete with everyone without realising what we are – a cricketer or a footballer or someone else? Can the Cathay Mullays of Pakistan run forever and win too? The best athlete can run a race in the track and win but cannot be a winner forever. Making life a race where we have to win every moment of existence makes life unliveable. For us victory and defeat is the only criterion of success. Can we not have a broader definition of success? To me the only criterion for success is being happy.

Russell elucidates reasons for unhappiness in his famous essay on Conquest of Happiness. He refers to mistaken views of the world, mistaken ethics, and mistaken habits of life as the major causes of misery in human life.  This is so true for our contemporary society. We are led by things that we do not define for our self. We have entrusted the right to define right and wrong to others forever. We live by standards set by others and not us. If we are born with a unique identity and personality then how can we ever come up to standards that are not our? In the whole tamasha of our life there exists no individual but institutions – family, society, etc.

What is this obsession with success and failure and that too on standards not set by us? It all breeds out of expectations that others have from us. For havens sake why can’t we love our children because they are our children why do we need to expect them to make us proud in the eyes of others when they grow up? Is parent’s love for their offspring contingent upon their success in life? Sad but true for our society - yes.

The whole world is looking to define poverty. Economists define poverty in terms of money and the public health professionals in terms of food intake. I define poverty in terms of misery. You are poor if you are unhappy even if your table is full of food and your bank full of money. If your life is morose no amount of money and no exotic foods can fill the gap.

Life is tough; it was supposed to be but it was not supposed to be a sad affair. When we refer to someone as full of life what are we referring to? Is it not happiness? Happiness is the essence of life. For us howsoever pessimistic you think I am, but happiness comes at the end of our priorities. 

In order to be happy we need to be at peace with our self. We must not burden our kids, friends and parents with expectations. This will only come when we let the welfare approach to life go. We must let people make their own decisions and not take this responsibility onto us. We are no one to decide about others life exactly in the same manner as no one else has the right to define success and failure for us. It is absolutely possible that there are more than one winners if we treat life different than a race. Let everyone win; we must not lose, for loss is not loss as others define it but loss is how we perceive it. There are no universal standards of failure or success. We as individuals have the right to define them according to our circumstances.

Let us make ourselves happy while it is still time. Khayyam said and I quote

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!

Dark Alleys

We all have a fair share of successes and failures in life. Each of us feels the heat of this complicated experience that we call life. More often than not we see ourselves in difficult situations and once into a difficult condition we tend to remember it forever. It is difficult to forget and get over with the despair and anguish of a failure. We feel trapped in a dark alley which would lead us to nowhere.

The darkest of alleys too leads somewhere. Testing times are there for a purpose. A purpose we do not understand. Our pain and agony won’t benefit anyone, though sometimes one person’s success is others failure but why this pain is associated with failure.

Difficult times are just like examinations. As a child I was very afraid of examinations where often I did poorly than good. A wise man then told me that every examination is an opportunity.  School examinations get us promoted to the next grade, a job test gets us a new employment and trials of life get us to the next stage of human intellect.

I had more failures than successes. Every success mad me happy for a very short while whereas my failures haunt me even decades later. These failures are like old wounds which start paining whenever there is a reason. Even wounds that healed left behind scars as reminders of the difficult times that I once went through. Sometimes life seems just a collage of wounds and scars. 

When I take a stock of my life so far, amazingly I reckon that my failures were my successes. Yes they gave me strength that enabled me to fight even tougher battles, though it is a immaterial whether I lost or won, but I survived. The darkest alleys where I often found myself struggling, cursing, yelling, crying and kicking led me somewhere. Every failure taught me a lesson and gave me strength to survive the newer onslaught from life. Had I never faced a major defeat I would not have been the person that I am today. Every time when I thought life could not be worse it worsened but amazingly I survived.

Is survival all what I wanted from life? No I wanted successes, I wanted to be a winner, I wanted to be on top of the world but I could not get most of it. I find it hard to believe that successful people are better than failed individuals because I have seen wonderful people failing and a world of mediocrity succeeding.

My failures were in fact my successes. Whenever I found myself in a dark alley I came out into a new world where I emerged as a stronger person. I would never have reached this stage where I do not cherish victory or dread failure. I attained peace within and without. With so much in my hands I do not believe I am a loser. The darkest alleys and dead ends were not the end of life but they were just the means to another world. I discovered myself only after I attained a degree of failures. I would have never known my strengths had I not failed so often. I would still be running in the race of life cursing myself and others but still running. Amazingly my failures gave me the depth to appreciate world from an angle different than ‘success and failure’.

My love you have all the ingredients to take you to the top of the world, you are honest, straight forward, happy go lucky sort of person but you have to liberate yourself from the desire of being successful in every sphere of life. You will only know yourself when you disenthrall yourself from the mundane meanings of failure and success. You will one day define these words for yourself and the world.  I am sure you will find your failures counted towards successes once you are free from other people’s meanings of failures.

The darkest alleys in life lead us to self discovery. This is the success that only emerges from failures. My dear I would have been a different person whom you know today had I been always been successful. I would have been unsure of myself if I had not faced more than my due share of failures.

You are so strong and honest that at times it is difficult to face you. That amazing quality comes not from a stream of success but failures. Did you or did you not? May you be successful and strong without the pain associated both with success and failure however you perceive them. 

The most powerful expressin in the face of defeat is from Milton when he says:

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost—the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome.

                                    (John Milton - The Paradise Lost, Book I, 105)

Constants

What does the word constant mean? In terms of mathematical sciences a constant is a value that does not change with changing variables. A constant is something that does not change and helps us resolve complex problems of this world. In physical world of ours, where we exist for a specific period, constants play a pivotal role. Gravity, for one is a constant that shapes every moment of our life on this plane of existence. It keeps us hinged to the earth, helps us walk and makes apples fall down on earth and not fly upwards towards sky. The sun in the solar system maintains the planets in their position and the earth does not collide either with Mars or Venus in its moment of madness. All because some constant keeps everything pivoted to its place.

Beyond the physical and mathematical worlds, which are essentially the same because mathematics just explains the physical world in complex equations and explanations, there is a spiritual world. A universe shrouded in mystery and rarely understood by the majority of people who often experience their lives through their five senses only. This is a world where we exist before we are born into the physical world. Some constants exist here too that hold us to the positions destined for us. These constants push, pull and squash us but do not let us move away from the furrow of life. Who and what are these constants that seize and control every moment of our lives without us realizing their existence? Parents are the among the first emotional and psychological constants that hold us through the difficult times when we are both physically and emotionally at the weakest. Parents are not enough to cover the whole nine yards of life so we let other people into our lives and some of them, often a beloved, a teacher, a friend or a mentor becomes a constant to hold the thread of life through this extremely complicated journey that we call life.  

Just like the physical constants, the metaphysical constants remain at a distance to maintain their objectivity and do the balancing act for they are meant to organize our lives. The sun maintains the planets from a distance of about 150 million kilometres from earth, the gravity is sourced at the centre of earth some 6400 kilometres below our feet, our parents let us fly away once we are young adults, and our mentors leave us to this world when we are ready to survive. What does that mean? Probably every constant will only remain constant if it maintains the distance.

This brings me to the most contested conclusion in terms of love. Each of us falls in love and probably keeps falling in love during this brief period we are alive. We go through this experience many a times though we loath to accept this for a whole lot of reasons that we will discuss some other day. But for love to remain eternal and act as a constant we must be separated from the beloved. For love exists not in the mundane but extraordinary. Whenever we stumble we like to believe in that one special person who would not have let us fall but alas we are apart. Such is the power of faith that even when this faith is unrealistic we still want to stick to it. Existence of this faith in our lives keeps us moving through the thick of life.

  If this conviction is that important for life to sail through then why bother validating?  The veracity of this faith is not important; its existence in the first place is the end in itself.  Determining the truthfulness could in fact deprive us of this important buttress of life.

My love, you are the constant in my life and I do not want to know anything beyond this. I have lost and won so much in life that I am no longer afraid of loss nor do I look forward to victory. I am not a loser, I am not a winner. I don’t want to be either.  I don’t even want you to miss me when I am not there besides you because neither I want to be a source of pain for you  nor do I ever want to believe that I am not there besides you. I have nothing to win over you. I got what was for me. You, my love are the constant that will keep me sane through this crazy world. You are my strength, you are my life, you are my sanity, you are my touchstone in life. How can I live upto you is the question that I struggle every moment. I will do well, though, not because of what I am but because of what you mean to me.

Too long for the day ... I close here with my favourite Khayyam:

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears --
     To-morrow? -- Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years

(Omar Khayyam translated from Persian by Edwards Fitzgerald)

Immortal

Anything that will never die is immortal. But what is death? As a young teenager my spiritual guide told me death is nothing but stagnation. For anything to stagnate there has to be life and when the life ends one stagnates. But then what is life? Is it just the basic physical attributes that include movement, breathing, reproduction and probably eating to get energy (sorry my basic sciences are so weak). I do not intend answering all these questions in a single blog but will take up these sometime or maybe I won’t be able to answer them ever but here I just want to give my view of immortality. Well well hang on and don’t worry a readable blog must be like a lady’s skirt short enough to retain interest and long enough to cover.

Immortality is something that can only be associated with things larger than life. Life is the most precious thing that we have by far but what is it that is more important than life? Do you remember when Romeo and Juliet existed, or Heer and Ranjah or Laila and Majnoo tread on this earth? I don’t and probably you don’t too. Why because they are characters larger than life. They will live forever not as human beings but as emotions, as embodiment of love and as symbols of greatness that love brings onto us. I am not a person of war but when people lay their lives for the love of their land and honour they too become immortal. The common denominator in both these types is LOVE.

It is love that makes us immortal. If you love a person you become a romantic, your country a shaheed and God then a sufi. But before you can love you need to have love within yourself; you can’t give away anything that you don’t have. Hatred, fear and suspicion will burn you out thus finish it from within yourself so that all your heart is filled with love. Then see how the world changes for you. You will fly in the sky; drink from streams; eat from forests and be on top of the world.

Omar Khayyam said and I quote

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
...Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

This is all what I need to live my life, as Khayyam says a book of verses, you, jug of wine and wilderness all under a tree.

I am a romanticist and am so proud of it.

Have a great day

Cogito ergo sum

Cogito ergo sum - “I think therefore I am” – a statement by Rene Descartes, a modern natural philosopher of the 17^th Century is often quoted as the basis of contemporary philosophy. Simply put if we think whether we exist or not it is in itself the proof of our existence.

We all exist but the existence of physical objects that include all animal and plant life is different from human existence. These elements exist in the physical world whereas the humans exist at three different planes. The basic and fundamental is the physical existence in this world of air, water and earth. We use our five senses every moment to interact with the physical world. We eat when we are hungry, we sleep when tired, we drink when thirsty but why do we cuddle our loved ones, why do we engage in discussions and endless gossip, why do we cry, why do we feel the pain even when there is no physical reason for that?

We live through all these experiences because we do not exist on the physical plane only. Our existence is on more than one plane; beyond the physical reality we have a spiritual reality too. We have emotions, we miss our loved ones – when away- and we have obsessions which are difficult to explain on the basis of physical logic because we have something that is not bound by the principles of Physics. It is the spiritual world. The world that exists and we are part of it but still we do not realize. We cannot name our everyday encounters with this spiritual world therefore we choose to ignore it. Have you ever thought why only humans fall in love and not animals? They exist only in the physical world and nothing beyond and a part of us – our soul – exists in the limitless universe outside the physical boundaries.

How do we connect the physical and spiritual worlds that exist side by side within us? Philosophy is the synthesis of the two worlds; it connects the spirit to physical world. Everything that exists in the physical sphere has a philosophical basis. This world is bound by hard material rules then how do we explain coincidences.

There are no coincidences but everything that happens has a philosophical basis. If I met you today this existed in the physical world forever but we had no hint before this happened on the ordained day. It does not happen for nothing. It has a purpose, it is for you and I to find out the purpose if we have the vigour and if not then this event will fade away in oblivion life so many other distant memories. When I say my future depends on you I draw not on your physical self but your sprirtual power. Come hold my hand and we will conquor the whole world.

"It happens all the time in heaven, And some day it will happen again on earth--That men and women who are married, and men and men who are lovers, and men and women who give each other light, Often will get down on their knees and while so tenderly holding their lover's hand, with tears in their eyes, will sincerely speak saying, 'My dear, How can I be more loving to you, How can I be more kind.'" (Hafiz - Translated from Persian)

Friends are family of your choice

Relationships are like responsibilities. Every expectation creates a role and every role creates a relationship. We live in a complex world where every person has multiple roles in life. Men are fathers, husbands, brothers, friends, bread earners and so on. Women again are mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, friends, home makers, wage earners, etc. Each of these roles assigns us some responsibilities and more the roles more responsibilities. We are accountable for each of our responsibilities then why do we make friends, enter into relationships, and add to our responsibilities.

Human beings are social animals though, I despise humans being called animals as humans are humans and animals are animals but sociologist call humans social animals so I use the same expression. They live in companionship of others and can only survive when in their drove. That’s why many statutes have penalties which are solitary confinements. Solitary confinement is also used to break people like they are holding detainees at Guantanamo.  Being alone is painful, very painful indeed.

There are different people who help us grow through a range of phases in life. Parents sustain us when we are infants, siblings join in when we are toddlers and activity partners when we are adolescents. No one can make a choice of family he or she is born in; so as a corollary we have to accept parents and siblings that are already chosen for us. But it is not possible to cover the whole nine yards of life with these primary relations only.

We need much more than parental and sibling espousal to live our lives. We need soul mates who are there to share whatever we have. Expectations from our parents and siblings force us to be a certain person, which we may or may not be; therefore we need someone with whom we are just us and nothing else. Such is the pleasure of having friends that we are backed in everything right or wrong. I quote from Khuswant Singh’s Train to Pakistan where he says “Punjabi morals are baffling, you swear on Holy Quran or Geeta, get beaten up at a police station and still tell a lie for a friend and be called a nar adami a he man”. While his novel is set in Punjab but these words hold true for many cultures.

Friendship or fraanship – as one of my dear friends calls it – is an asset without which hardly anyone of us can survive. We choose our friends therefore we have control over who enters our life and who stays on. This is a circle that is based purely on our liking and choice. You can share anything and everything that you have with a friend and still feel secure. A true friend will defend you when you cannot defend yourself, cover you where you are at your weakest.

Treasure your friendships. Keep them close to your heart. With a friend be random, take chances, dance in the rain, cry, spend all your cash, sing out loud, fall in love, laugh till your stomach hurts, dance like no one is watching, laugh at a stupid joke, say I love you, make them feel better, make up a song, tell them how much they mean to you, and try anything new. Life will be at its best it will be so much fun and pleasing.  

Why Everything Inappropriate is Attractive

When a friend asked me as to why everything inappropriate is so attractive I was at loss for words for a coherent and acceptable answer. I just discovered another attribute of human nature. While many of my friends will present me the usual good and evil reaction that is written in all religious scriptures and narrated by a Mulla or a Priest every week in the weekly congregation but I am searching for an answer that is more to do with human beings and less with faith.

My first reaction to my friend’s question was how do we define the word inappropriate? According to the Standard English language dictionary inappropriate is something that is not acceptable, wrong, out of place. For anything to be inappropriate someone needs to evaluate it as such. This makes inappropriateness essentially other people’s understanding of our actions.

Do we really want to entrust others the right to decide on what we should or should not do? I will be very nervous giving away this right to someone else to decide on our actions. If this is my life then I have the right to live it myself. I cannot and should not let others decide on how I live my life. As an individual I am liable to my actions and have the right to decide on the way I want to live it. My faith in personal freedom is absolute to the extent that I would not object to someone committing suicide and indeed the statutes in western countries do not consider a penal offence.

My friend insists that we judge ourselves constantly therefore inappropriate remains inappropriate even if we are no longer concerned about others. We can run away from everything and everyone in this world but not ourselves. In response I will again say our values are again someone else’s values; someone defines our standards and not we ourselves. As human beings we are not born with pre-programmed software that tells us what and how to live our lives therefore all our values, believes, norms and standards are given to us by others. These are someone else’s values that are ingrained in our personalities when we are learning to live our lives. That is why values and standards of morality are different in every culture and society. Cousin marriages are an acceptable practice in many of the eastern cultures especially in South Asia whereas the same is incest in the west. Alcohol is inappropriate in Muslim cultures whereas it is not appropriate in other cultures. Sikhs do not smoke tobacco whereas there are over a billion other people who smoke. If you drink alcohol in a Muslim community, marry a cousin in a western society or smoke tobacco in a Sikh village these will be all be inappropriate while the same will be acceptable outside these cultural confines.

Inappropriateness is relative and changes form culture to culture and society to society. If societies and cultures that are collection of people can decide on the standards then why by the same corollary individuals can not define appropriateness for themselves. Anything that attracts me is closer to nature, satisfies me, and makes my life worth living so I cannot let someone’s views on morality, or ethics take away these essentials from my life.

I don’t know my friend convinced or not? Convincing my extraordinarily intelligent, gifted and bright friend is not easy though I will keep trying. Having said this I agree to individual’s right to define appropriateness including accepting standards by others.