Intellectual fodder

When do you know you are living in a haze? When you suddenly close your eyes and can’t recollect the face of the person you were talking to 10 seconds ago. When do you know you are in a daze? When you walk along — turn around abruptly and cannot remember a single detail of whatever was in front of you a moment ago. When do you realise your mind is being bombed by your thoughts? When you have eaten breakfast and can’t recollect the taste of anything that entered your mouth. If what I say appears strange or if you think all this applies to the other guy and not you — you are probably reading mechanically — and in a daze right now.

The hard truth of our life is simply this — we have ‘zombied’ ourselves, become mental slaves of our thoughts and what’s worse — we don’t even know this has happened. All the learning and training we get in our lives help us gain a power over the world but never equips us to gain power over ourselves. We feel that whatever we are, that’s the natural way we are and that’s the natural way we should be. That notion of normalcy is the most insidious of all addictions — we have no notion of that fact that we are addicted in the first place — and the fact that we crave for a ‘fix’ of the same old stale thoughts is interpreted by us as the most natural quest a person can ever have.

That’s why there are only two types of people in this world. Those who are mentally hooked in a zillion ways and those who hook those guys. (It’s another matter that the guys who hook are hooked by others or by themselves). Hooking minds with thoughts is called the ‘art of persuasion’ — and that has refined itself over thousands of years — and spills into every field of human activity. In fact, the world’s economy runs on it. I am itching to digress but I won’t. I’ll stop, by saying that it’s in public interest that you continue to remain a zombie all your life.

There is a mind to which thoughts are just useful slaves and there is a mind which is just a useful slave to thoughts. At the extreme, are guys who strap on a bomb and blow themselves — sad guys whose minds have been bent into destruction. But make no mistake, there are billions of others who waste their present with thought addiction. Who cannot endure a perfect moment of ecstasy from addictive thoughts — people who love their prison, and if ever anyone gives them the keys to freedom, would rather throw it away and crawl back into their personal dungeons.

Who do you think I am talking about? Consider carefully. Will be back on this next week.