Independence day, some thoughts

Happy Independence Day!

This day, 57 years ago, the subcontinent freed itself from the notions of oppression. It become free from those who were trying to make decisions for it. Today I saw several documentaries on the suffering and pain that our forefathers had to undergo under foreign rule and how finally good triumphed over evil.

If pain, suffering, evil, oppression, ... are all so bad - why do we have so much of it in this world?

I believe - without suffering we will not cherish joy, without evil we will never appreciate the good, without oppression we will never appreciate freedom.

Would the world be a better place if there was peace, happiness, prosperity and plenty all around? If people went around smiling, holding out their hand and saying "Live long and prosper"?

No.

We need to suffer in order to progress. Or atleast thats what I think. And if you disagree - well, let me remind you this is a free world. :-)

Mankind cannot florish unless there is resistance. "Survival of the fittest" said some wise guy. "Evolution" said some other (or maybe the same guy?). Why would we need to evolve if we had not a care in the world, were smiling away to glory and had plenty of everything? We would still be roaming the orchards eating apples.

Even God acknowledges the presense of "evil". I'm sure God would get pretty bored if He didn't have evil to fight against.

Evil balances good. Joy balances suffering. Sadness balances happiness.

But what about world peace? Do I think that world peace is not achievable?

Well, if world peace did come about I am sure we would find alien life with whom to fight against. And then the story would start all over again but this time around, Earth as a whole would be the "good guys" and the aliens would be the "bad guys". Star Trek, any one?

There's so much going on in this world which seems absurd, but it can all be explained away by the fact that we need conflicts. Conflicts could be with another country, with ideologies, with your neighbour, with yourself, ... If conflicts went away, evolution would stop.

I was rummaging through some of the old stuff (and I have plenty of it) in my closet today morning. "Let me clean up this mess", I thought to myself. So out went old magazines, sticky jumbo rubber bands, manuals for equipment I no longer used, ... I must say I am pretty content with my cleaning spree. My closet seems cleaner for the effort.

Most important of all I discovered, in the junk, a cool "noise cancelling" headset with mic which had a USB interface! I never knew I had this gem of a noise cancelling USB headset and was out to buy one for myself ever since I discovered VOIP (voice-over-IP, for the uninitiated, is the ability to place phone calls over the Internet). And this one was good - I tested it out by playing some music out loud while using the mic to record my voice, and the noise cancelling feature worked flawlessly - no music, just my (sweet) voice was recorded.

I realized that even junk could be useful some day. At one point in time that headset had seemed junk to me. But today, its a gem.

Unless we have the need, we wouldn't appreciate something.

"Want to know the value of a milli-second? Ask the athlete that came second", said some interesting email that was forwarded a billion times.

Want to know the value of freedom? Ask the country that spent hundreds of years in oppression and humiliation.

And acknowledge that without oppression freedom is not worth the paper its written on.

BTW some other stuff I discovered in the junk (warning - shameless self-promotion ahead!) is a news clip from the London Sunday Mail written years back about our "email to post" service. Here's an online link to that article. And also a book released by IDRC Canada that features our "E-marketers" project. Have a read if you will. For those wondering what "FOOD India" is, look at our home page. I'm the project coordinator at that organization in addition to doing several other things like write this blog and run websites, not necessarily in that order.

I think Eminem's recent "How Come" is a cool song. He doesn't just rhyme, there's also some rhythm to the rhyme. Perhaps D12 did some good. "My Band" also sounds good.

One last thing before I go - if something is too good to be true, is it?