Growing up, without morals.

Whoever gave us morals? If there is one thing that keeps us from
being absolutely honest, it has got to be our "moral" grooming. India
isn't the only culture that keeps bombarding its people with moral
nonsense either. President Bill Clinton was at the receiving end of a
fifty million dollar campaign that sought to prove he had extra
marital sex in the White House. A lot of senior leaders and
politicians stand against gay rights based on "morality". For heavens
sake, how about respecting what is another person's private affair?

There are a lot of fools who believe we will have a better world if
everybody's behaviour was morally pure. Sure! And there are fools
who believe if we shut every single industry down, stopped all
transportation and power generation, we'd not have any atmospheric
pollution either. It's logical, for sure. Heck, if we stopped
breathing altogether, we'd have a lot more oxygen left. Please let's
stop the Olympics! Look at how hard all the athletes breathe!
Nothing wrong with idealism, except that it cannot be pushed to
ridiculous extremes especially on moral grounds.

If you are able to say, based on nothing practical, but on some
arbitrary principle of righteous behaviour, that someone's actions are
right or wrong, then the real problem we have is this - Morals are
indeed, to each one of us, simply a list of things we agree with.
Your list and my list aren't necessarily going to be identical, not
with six billion of us around. By all means, keep your list, but
don't you dare expect me to live by yours!

Most certainly, the actions of one person can have an impact on
another. It is a given that we are interdependent in many ways. But
morals? If I didn't have extra marital sex, how is that going to make
anybody else's life better? Since morality mostly has to do with
sexuality, I wonder if just plain jealousy has to do with most of the
moral policing that goes on. You can see Chennai police taking
particular pleasure in disturbing couples on the beach and nosy Indian
landlords being particularly inquisitive about people of the opposite
gender visiting unmarried tenants.

The worst argument I have heard the Americans come up with in their
opposition to gay people getting married is that it destroys the
institution of marriage! I wonder how much damage to this esteemed
institution a 50% divorce rate is doing, never mind that all logic
would point to more people wanting to get married might actually
repair the institution much more than causing any damage to it.

Invoking the name of God for any reason should be punishable by death,
if not for sacrilege and deceit, then for stupidity. No human being
really knows anything conclusive about God, and simply concluding
without knowing isn't really a good way to skirt around this
shortcoming. Some countries might claim "In God We Trust", even
though they seem to invest more in the devil anyway. Let's judge
people purely through actions. Actions that hurt others should be
condemned, legislated against, and banned whenever and wherever
possible. Actions that have no direct impact on others should be left
alone to the pure discretion of the people carrying out those actions.
The other very important pointer available to us is intent. Two gay
people wanting to get married to each other are definitely not
intending to challenge the marriage of two heterosexual individuals!
So, if you're opposed to any of this on moral grounds, you ought to be
banished from this discussion and jailed where no human can have
contact with someone so poisonously stupid.

The other institution we haven't paid much attention to is the "social
contract" that we seem to function rather well under. If two people
cross each other on the street, for most part, we are able to assume
they won't try to kill each other. If a visitor stops by, asking
someone who looks local for directions, we can, for most part, expect
the local to give correct directions or at the very least, not
deliberately mislead the visitor. These are social contracts we never
signed but can mostly take for granted. It is our trust in each other
and that is a beautiful thing. It is when we are most human, and most
powerful. We do function well without compulsions, and that is worth
taking note of.

I remember as a child, I was subjected to something called Moral
Science in school. If morals could be some kind of science, then it
automatically follows that it is based on rational enquiry,
experimentation, proof, and verifiability. There is no verifiable
record or proof to conclude that a moral existence brings us a better
life. So, this can never be a Science. I remember we discussed God,
the teachings of various religions and leaders, all disguised, perhaps
for respectability under this "science". It would be hard to shove
something called Moral Faff down our throats, wouldn't it? It was an
easy subject to pass, because it involved no room for thought or
argument. It was all just what it was, and we had to know spew
whatever we could swallow. Easy. This is the only time morals were
formally even presented to me, and I doubt if most people even have
this privilege.

I wonder if there is a stage in life when some of us suddenly become
morally conscious. If this is true, then it certainly means we got
along with our merry, morally ignorant ways till this point, and the
sky didn't fall on our heads. If we didn't go to jail or induce
hatred in other people, we perhaps did quite well by any standards.
So if we were to suddenly subscribe to morals, somewhere in the mix,
there has to be realization brought on by a sense of guilt. If guilt
were to guide us, then we have already made ourselves available to
fear and torment and we don't deserve any peace of mind. Yes, it is
logical - if you have suddenly switched to a moral existence, you
could actually lose your peace of mind! Any surprise that very happy
people rarely preach morals?

The pursuit of truth, however, is a noble one, and requires courage.
Finding the truth is the ultimate release from fear and all its
vicious entrapments. If we are fearless, we automatically become a
target for many people who'd rather kill a fearless person out of
fear, instead of learning from that person's mastery over fear! We
live in a strange world indeed, and we must eradicate these diseases
of fear, anxiety, and guilt from within our souls. Love is strength,
love is pure, love is power, love is light, and love is God. Love
alone stands for everything that is good about us. Trust in others,
empower the love in the other person's heart, and don't worry about
following your own. Remain above needing morals to guide your
actions.