Tuesday, October 11, 2005

The right to be Stupid

I don't want to have opinions, though I have been accused quite many times to have many many opinions. At least after long years of mindless arguments (though I continue to have them :)) I am pretty sure that one should not have opinions if he wishes to wade through this life like he would sip his morning coffee - quite mindlessly and nonchalantly, yet with an actually undeserving happy feel. But, thats hardly the case in real life. We all tend to have opinions and there is no real line which we can draw as the limit.
First thing in the morning, thanks to my addiction to blogs, I hear of this thing (from a very likely source for me, George).
And here, I find myself having hardly an opinion on it. Nothing seemed to strike me. Not Freedom of speech, not Bloggers' rights. Nothing. Sure, I am shook myself to know that a guy had actually quit his job for standing with his opinions about some goddamn institute. Gaurav may be one of the very few to do such a thing. But, the blank reaction comes when one asks what is my opinion on this? That one should fight for his rights? What kinda rights? I had found many people stupid. Yet, if I keep ranting on, say, an Abdul Kalam (thanks to his talks on future, dreams and success), I will sure receive brickbats from many quarters and I guess there is even some provision in constitution to put me behind the bars. So, what is the point? Is it that IIPM doesn't deserve to react when somebody points out some glaring stupidity in their claims as the President could afford to?
Well, I am not making any point here. Its an explanation to myself as to why I am shook by this incident and yet not having any opinion on it.
One might say that the moral of the story is: "If you play with matches, you get burned".
Someone else might say the words need to be chosen more carefully with enough vitriol, like this: "If you introduce yourself to pigs, you might end up in deep shit".
Comparing IIPM to matches (and this whole story to the quoted proverb) is hardly the thing I would like to do. Nor am I going to say the latter fits the bill. But, both of them mean the same. Don't they?

Friday, October 07, 2005

Which came first? - II

Again, Which of these came first? and which one followed?

a. Atheism,
b. Theism, or
c. Agnosticism

Answers?