Resolve Your Own Contrarian Challenges

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Like the Ruling Party and Opposition in a Constitutional democracy faith and scepticism are built into our life systems. No culture is free of this duel in the personal and social battle fields. When someone demands proof of God the other ‘believer’- a non- believer too has his own codes- advances contrarian logic. No one is prepared to accept the other’s point of view .S]uch duels are also fought between vegetarians and meat eaters: Democrats and Republicans; between religions, castes, races and even between regulars and lesbians: Why? The reason I believe is a sense of superiority which is claimed by one’s faith in God, religion, ideal, practice or habit or whimsical insistence on one’s egotistical sublimity. The non-believer, the Free thinkers claims superiority over the other. This merely proves that all the men are not equal; all minds do not have the same wave length, all tongues do not have the same tastes and so on. This corroborates the theory that all human beings are slaves comprising perceptions and sensibilities which make them individually unique. Rarely two such unique individuals agree on anything unless the object or subject of their agreement satisfies both individually.

Marriage is one such agreement between two individuals and it has withstood the test of long centuries. But how many marriages keep the spouses happy? The couples claiming compatibility and mutual happiness seldom admit in public that one of the spouses, by whatever compulsion accepts the views, habits, thoughts, faith and shenanigans of the other. It is at best an accommodation or a compromise where one of them settles for half. And this has been advanced as a practical philosophy for man, right through the centuries. We have to accept the One as the finality: if not half Mind, half Matter: if not mind will not matter and ‘matter’ someone will say ‘never mind’.

But there are many for whom faith leads to only fear of this world and apprehensions of the other world, which faith imposes. And they live a life of abnegation of the self. There are others for whom this life is the one, only and final. Once you die, there is no tomorrow. For both these groups- definitely a large chunk of mankind- there are certainties of food, healthcare for the body, power, direct or vicarious or rudiments of it for the mind.

If they are worried about the soul’s final journey, they live a life of self-denial. Those who live only once, they try to ‘loot’ all pleasures available in the world by their mind, that is using their  intelligence they carve out for themselves a large share of pleasure without bothering about ethical purity. What matters is the satisfaction of one life for which means and ends have no logical connection.

But there are many who cannot make both ends meet by honest labour. They do not have the mind to loot reality as their desires are not propped up by courage. Their faith is: He who has given us life will fend for us. And they die with this faith often on the roadside or on railway tracks. For such people the power to choose is denied as they do not want to exercise their choice either way. They live an other directed life. In modern democracies peoples’ representatives think for them in the Parliament. Thinkers and planners come out with schemes- often doles, reservations etc but when they get the minimum they demand for more. Like the jailed criminals demanding, free air, sunlight, wide space for movement and nourishing and tasteful food, the protected groups demand more of life. They develop the new faith of group strength. They come out to the streets and break and burn without caring much for lathis and bullets. The new faith is, manmade Governments are god substitutes and they must give what the others enjoy by birth, education, intelligence and hard work.

So what is the difference between faith and scepticism? The man of faith surrenders to one set of ideals. The contrarian too surrenders to spiced up nothings. Both remain unfulfilled. If a new ‘man’ decides to find a new middle path should he love another’s ideal or deny himself all ideals and live like a camera lens picturing things without looking at any one frame? The 21^st century has empowered the individual to live alone without ideals except pursuing that one thing which assures him the basic needs. Should man live a self- fulfilled life without knowing what fulfilment is? Or should he choose one set, either way, and join the group for finding some joy of discovery of meaning? Well, you choose if you have a choice to exercise, independent of all contrarian equations.