Is it wise to be wise?

Not at all!

Let us examine a few examples.

Everybody thinks that it is wise to make some money. The more the better. Money gives you a sense of security and a sense of achievement. It brings you the whole world of comfort at your feet. You feel elated that you have made it. But the other side of money is dark and cruel. Money breeds greed. Greed makes you to crave for more and more and you are never satisfied no matter how much wealth you have amassed. It also corrupts the mind beyond repair. The chairman of a public sector bank and a chief passport officer are nursing their heels in prison. What is our reaction to these sordid episodes? We wish we could make a quick money like them but somehow should escape from getting caught! Money never makes you happy unless you treat it as a means of transaction and not as a scale of your achievement. We earn money to live and to sacrifice our life to earn a few more bucks is plain suicide.

We think that democracy is the wisest form of government and is the only choice left to us to make a good government.But if you follow the election process, you will realize how idiotically it works and the havoc it plays upon good governance. It is based upon a foolish principle that three votes are better than two in the same way three kgs. of apple weigh more than two kgs! Never mind the fact that out of the three kgs., two kgs. may be rotten and useless for human consumption. No wonder that criminals, charlatans or simply stupid people grab the parliament seats and never allow the house to function or the nation to grow. The game of numbers may be good enough for a casino but not to form a good government. Yet the game goes on.

It is fair to believe that education benefits an individual, but to equate it with your mark sheet in the public examination is an insult to the Goddess of education. Cramming so much information into a poor boy’s head is like feeding a broiler chicken incessantly so that it accumulates more weight in a quick time. It is good for the butcher or the one who eats its flesh, but is it good for the bowl which is sagging under its own weight? A poor L.K.G. kid is lost to his childhood fun and frolic in the name of getting education to ensure a good ticket for a plum course and a good job. But will he ever get his childhood back?

Except as a swipe card to get you a campus placement, the present thrust of education is quite useless. The world’s most intelligent people have failed to perform better in their exams. And still they reached great heights in their career. If you make a survey of the best scorers in the +2 exams. you may see that they have ended up in a career which has destroyed their personality.

Religion is another wise thing with which we fool ourselves. We think it is wise to be religious because they are meant to make us a better man or woman. But does it serve its purpose now? We worship gods and fall flat at the feet of godmen in the hope that they will shower on us more wealth, get us good marks in the exams., and solve our problems without any effort on our part. Politicians conduct yagnas to win elections and some people do poojas to destroy their foes. Religion has killed so many lives and divided our people and caused havoc with the freedom and sovereignty of our country. The pious man who prays five times in a day or a diehard worshipper of the gods ends up either as a terrorist or as a Taliban. They feel that they have a mandate from God to purify the world from sinners and then they commit the worst crimes in the name of service to God.

You may be wondering what the hell then you want us to be? Well, there are so many absurdities and incongruities in life that coexist with the best thoughts and inventions of man. Discretion or judgment is the only helpline that can save us from our self proclaimed wisdom. No one is absolutely wise or absolutely foolish. Shakespeare says “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing” How wise he is!

Do you now agree with me that it is not wise to be wise?

You will if you are wise.

Good day! Keep snoring!