Monday, July 27, 2009

Virtue of the virtueless

Mundane yet beautiful

(Hoping the sentences below uttered by my keyboard will justify this pic and the caption)

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being original is such a great virtue...praiseworthy.....no doubts about that.....when u r original, ur the leader, something u can and should be proud of......but does mimicking or copying as bad as it sounds???? isn't it that all the greatness of being human, all our achievments dependent upon both leaders and followers......we achieved all these bcoz some us had some original idea and others were good at copying and implementing it......that's the whole point of cultural transmission...
Whats the point if everybody starts to display uniqueness, originality.....everything fails....today u design a car and everyone else tries to do it differently......u discover how to harness fire and everybody starts trying differently....so in such a society where everybody is so unique and original, which are such great virtues, how can things progress....i guess having too much virtue kills the flavor of the virtue.......

so whats the point of complaining about originality all the time and to be honest most of us who do fantastic stuff, which are seemingly original are examples of nice and indirect copying....instead of directly copying something, u just keep on taking some ideas from from different works and at the end u just blend them intelligently....some originality!!!! and i am not saying all of it is done consciously... probably sometimes u r conscious but mostly not.....but whats wrong with that....it is impossible to consciously know everything you copy...the mind has developed for years, taking in so much with more experiences...it is such a sink....it takes everything........whatever is near it, whatever it can perceive and whatever that is not near it, which it wants to perceive....if u r searching for black holes, here it is..except for it is neither a hole nor black.....but it takes in everything it perceives.... such insatiable hunger it has, feeding on everything it is fed...fed by the senses...it eats and eats...even when u sleep..it eats...it needs to eat....it makes u what u r.....with so much inside it, it dictates u do to something....show some originality....and when u do that how would you know that whatever u r displaying is not just ur mind puking....where u get the whole blend of things which has been stuffed in ur mind......

Isn't following, copying and puking the blended stuff also a virtue on its own.....i don't know whether its even a greater virtue than originality...surely not....but whats the value of being original if u r not followed.....what kind of leader wud u be without followers...surely its much romantic to lead, to think how original u r and how pathetic are other who just copy u and follow u....beware my friend, if the world didn't have the virtues of following, ur honeymoon won't even had started......every revolution and every change has been brought by those who knew when and whom to follow....many keep grumbling about how every tom dick and harry just follows with no mind of their own, so what are they supposed to do...if they listen to u, then they are following u...what's the difference??? u are grumbling coz they aren't following u!!! not that u want every body to be leaders....so dont have such illusions...its ok if u want to fool others but be careful bcoz u may fool even urself....know the truth, understand urself and then go on ur grand tour of fooling others...probably this way u can do a better job....

hey, i am no way undermining the value of leaders and the torch holders of originality, but empasizing how under-rated is the virtue of copying and following, in fact I doubt whether we even consider it as a virtue......progress needs both, in fact more followers than leaders....and thats what we see isnt it...no wonder we had progressed a lot....and look how much painstakingly we have ensured that ppl keep following until a new and better idea takes over it...what pains??? all this writing, books, recording, CD, DVD, Terabyte harddisc, youtube.......u can refer to things of past and learn....
Still following seems to be such a virtueless stuff...well, if you look around, u would see that often it is such that we keep on dismissing those virtues which have made us what we are....those virtues which seems so mundane....so common and simple....but we tend to forget that its not the rare glimses of fancy artistry, but the mundane tasks which sustains us

2 comments:

Unknown said...

FIND OUT IS THIS COMMENT MAKES ANY SENCE......................
with a nice invention with the virtue of the inventor... and following it making that invention more succesful..like electrycity then follwing it and making utilization of electrycity in the modern equopments lke a.c, refregitor...etc. makes the invention of electricity more succsful.
So, what i thinkis that followers take the leader to greater heights..without the followers the original has no value it diminish with time ....followers is very essential for a inventor.

so if you want to be the original then remember somebody should be there to copy you otherwise your originality will have a death with folloers you become immortal

Rudra said...

Yes, thats what I am trying to convey....what u r saying makes perfect sense....i am glad that I have been able to convey my thoughts