Anything to be proud of?

I am not proud of my country. I am not proud of being male, or tall, or any of the things I do not have any control over. Being an Indian is something I didn't choose, and in the event of having to belong to some country by default, I really didn't have any say. So, why even think about it? Besides, if I took up the luxury of being proud of my country, I would definitely like to think the obligation of hanging my head in shame comes with it when my country chooses to stand for something shameful.

Is there anything I am proud about? Probably not. I don't necessarily give any thought to the saying that pride can bring about one's downfall. I am just not bothered about being proud, that's all. It just isn't important to me to belong in any collective, and while there are sides I take in a sporting event, there aren't sides I wish to take at a level where my sense of belonging as a person comes under my own scrutiny.

Now, it is largely fashionable to be patriotic, just as it is largely fashionable to be idiotic. In a country of over a billion people, intelligent consensus is often impossible, and just looking at the diverse mix that India is, any sort of consensus is nothing short of a miracle. I would think we do fairly all right as a country in some respects, but there really is nothing in the collective effort of us all being Indians that I would necessarily be enthused by enough to be proud of.

The idea of a nation state is an essentially flawed one, and deserves to be questioned in its essence. The boundaries that define a nation are mostly geographic, and are drawn not by considerations of ideologies, and certainly not by asking its constituents if they like what they will eventually end up representing and belonging with. Most of us are just humans who happen to belong to some nationality and we should never have to carry the guilt, responsibility or pride that is imposed upon us. This isn't a choice we should have to make and a world without a nation state concept isn't a new concept either.

Being a nation, however, isn't without its advantages. It is hard for each of us to maintain defences strong enough to protect everything we would like to protect. So, we all pool in our resources, create the opportunity for people to serve in the army, navy or air force, and prop up enough equipment to deter, threaten, or unmotivate an enemy from attacking us. This is smart collective thinking, but again our sense of belonging under the flag of a "nation" is just brilliantly convenient for this purpose. It is perhaps just as well that fighting for the country is more likely to motivate our brave soldiers a bit better than fighting for a more nebulously defined collective, no matter how much more truthful.

How about the whole world getting together under ONE collective and ignoring all boundaries between us as humans - geographical, ideological, even spiritual? The more we share resources and the more we fight for some, we are being inevitably pushed towards this ideal, but more and more, our leaders are falling short of calling the bluff of the last few centuries and are buying even more strongly into new states and countries! Yes, we elected those leaders in many cases, but then again, that is not something I am proud of. Why is it that we still vote for people instead of voting for ideas? Shouldn't we be allowed to merely vote for - "spending money on education" against "spending money on the military" and forcing whoever is elected to simply obey what we have chosen?

Democracy - the least lousy system we humans have come up with in order to govern ourselves, is the most benign way of the weak keeping the strong down. In a system of natural selection, about a tenth of the population of the world today would have survived and would have the intelligence to live a good life without endangering any of the resources of this planet. But we somehow conspired to subscribe to a system that lets the unfit thrive because of compassionate considerations, however dishonest those may be. As a result, we have an overburdened planet, fools with the ability to slow down life for the really smart ones amongst us, and hence retarding the highest levels we can aspire for as a race.

My race! Again something I am not proud of. But I am reasonably happy to belong to the human race. It has potential. It has a remarkable ability to survive and improve, and build upon the improvements of others in the race. That is a huge plus. I definitely do not want to invent all the things I would love to have! For my fellow beings, I am willing to give myself. For another human being, I am willing to batter and bruise myself. I am willing to yell myself hoarse so something I have found may reach that one ear that might be able to use that information. But perhaps this is also something instinctive, something so primal that I have no control over? It doesn't matter. Somewhere, somehow, some human beings seem worth the trouble of caring for!