Degeneracy and taking things for granted.

In any relation, we often hear squabbles, tiffs and altercations over falling short of expectations. At the cost of repetition, the cliché that I am talking about is ‘Taking things for granted’. I tried reasoning out if it were correct/incorrect to take things for granted. In this post, I will try argue against this tendency to take things for granted.

All religions have one commonality – that man, as he is now, is a degenerate form of what he originally was. The Adam and Eve fable in Christianity says the same, the ideal of ‘Brahman’ in Hinduism, and for that matter any other religion says the same thing. By degeneracy, I do not mean immorality. (I have talked of this thin subjective line separating good and bad, and the futile attempt to draw this line in the previous post). By it, I mean, a fall in the level of consciousness. Consider a person learning how to play a piano. The initial key strokes are done with full consciousness. As he slowly masters the beautiful instrument, the actions are more unconsciously done. It doesn’t require focusing all of his mind energy into the action. This is what I mean by degeneracy. 

For the theist, it is only natural to stop being a degenerate because of his faith in the lord. And from the utilitarian atheist is also expected an effort to lessen this degeneracy. Why? Because all human errors and accidents- big and small, frivolous and catastrophic are all because of a casual effort in doing some work. Which in other words is not being totally conscious of the work – degeneracy, if you will.  In other words, irrespective of our religious stance, it is expected that we rise from being a degenerate.

If you think a little, taking things for granted is another form of degeneracy. The foundation for this tendency is the guarantee that the other person will not afford to lose you at any cost. Now, you are totally unconscious of how the other person feels when you are being this callous. And in the process, you are being a degenerate. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t take things for granted because of the degeneracy involved.

Equilibrating societal and moral differences.

I am only amused when people talk of all encompassing equality (be it financial or any other) and actions entailing common good. What I fail to understand is that in the event of financial equality, a scenario where nobody would be willing to do the supposedly ‘menial’ labor work, would the owner of a house under construction carry the bricks himself? Philanthropy, as it is, is limited by constraints; constraints which vary with time and our position.  No strings attached, an average person wouldn’t want anyone to fall sick. Consider the mindset of a pharmacist; this stance would do him no good, since it negates his business prospects. Yet there is no way out of it. The traffic police would love it fewer people were to wear the appropriate gear (money under the desk); yet such a desire increases the susceptibility of a greater damage during accidents. What should the antivirus companies do if the number of hackers plummets to zero?  We talk of strength mental and physical; will a doctor or a psychiatrist think the same way? I don’t think so. The greater the insanity, the happier is the latter. Yet we foolishly bicker with each other over common good. What we fail to realize is that the distinction between good and bad is highly subjective, variable and thin. What is good to me may not be good to some other being. The very fact that my thirst cannot be quenched unless a few thousands or may be more of micro-organisms die is empirical evidence of the displacing effect that our existence has. It is only foolish to think of something narrow in the interest of the entire populace. The equilibrium, the dynamic one that we are in, is buttressed by differences, and to remove this is to disturb this equilibrium.