Bits Of Paper: Who's Gonna Pick 'em Up?

every generation has a philosophy which drives it. Like our parents are driven by the philosophy of hard work and perseverance and learning and we are driven by smart work and unlearning and relearning. We often hear of our grandparents speak of the good old days when working in the fields brought them great joy and peace of mind and how our parents would complain of their 2nd shifts in factories. And now we get to hear stories of how a hard day's work on the company shop floor, working with machinery brought our folks great satisfaction and peace of mind and how that experience is hard to find in front of a computer screen! I guess we too will have our turn to tell our children of the immense pleasure and job satisfaction working on unfinished codes for a web-based application brought us compared to their voice command controlled supercomputers which writes the codes and documents for them based on the requirements they dictate to their workstations!

Every generation thus defines the boundaries of the environment in which it thrives. From the pre-Independence environment of uncertainty and abject poverty to the environment of green and white revolutions of the 70s to the technological revolution of the 90s. Each of these environments had a particular way in which the machinery of society worked. And it is funny, but I guess when people say that 'Corruption and Apathy is in our blood.' it has an element of truth in it. Because in all our generations all we see is the need to wriggle our way through life and find societal status even if it means making our principles and ideals a sacrificial lamb. Most of you reading this will feel that if principles cannot guarantee us success, then what's the point in adhering to it? That's correct. But I don't think that's the reason why man must be righteous. Righteousness is for one's own peace of mind. The world could care less if MK Gandhi were called the 'Mahatma' or if Mother Teresa is worthy of being called a 'Saint'. If they followed their principles they did so because they wanted to live a life of peace and a clear conscience. That they became a source of inspiration to the generations after them is just a positive after-effect of their piety.

And so if we wish to see 'Real Change' around us; change that is not just part of some ad campaign of a company trying to peddle its products under its banner, change that is not just some fancy slogan to create mass hysteria and a pseudo-active state of our consciousness; we need to shut up and look inside us. We need to understand that Change is not something the world needs but it is something that we need: to find our peace of mind. And our effecting it and cleaning the mess we make will define in the annals of history the true philosophy of the life and times of our generation.