The find of the year

There is an unspoken social taboo in the quest of some things deemed important in life. Last time I heard it was in the movie "Into the wild", Vince Vaughn tries to pacify Alex not to venture into the unchartered territories.

"This is a mistake. It's a mistake to get too deep into all that kind of stuff. Alex, you're a hell of a young guy, a hell of a young guy. But I promise you this. You're a young guy! Can't be juggling blood and fire all the time! "

He was right since Alex character went too extreme without realizing the importance of finding the right balance. It's the curse most quest hunters fall into, more the taboo, more extreme they tend to go and lose themselves in the process. There is no one to impress upon, there is nothing to be expedited and ironically patience is the only thing to  fuel and contain the dopamine and adrenaline.

There are things we always believe in, "felt" and "feel" being the right thing, the process of listening to the heart and the importance of prudent decisions evolving from the brain which sometimes goes against the very fabric of self preservation. One of the great mysteries in the universe is the human consciousness and morality. This has been perpetually perpetuating seminal events which defines our civilization. This leaves us with a burden of honing the consciousness and morality perpetually to enable us to move forward in the right direction as a species. Paradoxically there is an antigravity in the form of intellectual laziness, social taboo, religion, cultural norms and homosapien compromises forcing us stray away with an implicit warning of considered a social pariah. Finding the right balance between these two forces is a life long calibration and swimming against the tide may be seem hard but it does makes us stronger and keeps us awake. There are times in our lives when our consciousness raises red flags with a deafening mute siren. The frequency and the situations for red flag to pop up varies between individuals since its shaped and defined by the balance between the two forces acting against each other. In time we become aware of timing of popping red flag and unheeding to it leads to our cognitive dissonance. But yet there are numerous popping red flags which we cannot seem to give a name, shape or purpose.

I had this one red flag (which probably is the father of all my red flags) popping all over the place, trying to break social "norms" flirting with autism, made me even taste the innate nauseousness in the white lies, occasionally driving me insane because of its incomprehensible inability to convert it into a sound byte and this enigma lead to serotonin driven philosophizing. Somehow this enigma felt right and listening to it and giving it a pragmatic shape felt even better. I just accepted it as a part of me and life went on until this year I learnt this red flag had been honed close to perfection and was baptized over 200 years ago by Immanuel Kant. He called it Categorical Imperative because the mere act of hypothesizing will enable us to rationalize anything under the sun.

It's often dismissed as idealistic only because we expect it from others and that rightly is idealistic. But yet practicing it oneself can never be considered quixotic. The question is how far and how deep is one capable of venturing into it without losing the balance between the two opposing forces?

"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
He goes even further to state ....
"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."