Kenobi: Listen carefully! I was on train the other day and happen to sit in front of a sophisticated man who might have been in his sixties. His big round glasses with thick brown frame was always in close vicinity with his mobile screen. His clothing was carefully tuned for overnight travelling and had worn shoes to adhere possible coldness. He was aware enough not to spend his money on food sold in the railways as he has already had his share from his arrival point. We spoke casually and one could find his soft nature in his convincing words that expounded his need for a railway ticket which is feasible compared to other means of travel. The train began at 7 in the evening and my destination was 12 hours away while his was 9. I considered joining both the seats as we were in a RC quota. He asked me to wait for some more time and I waited. When the clock struck 9, I asked again and he straight away denied saying that he was comfortable being seated. I agreed and as the night came overhead with reduction in hussle-bussle in a railway coach I tried sleeping after relaxing half a seat on side lower berth. I couldn’t. I tried different sleeping positions and found that each of them ended up with a constraint and pain in joints either in legs or neck. The old man on the other end involved his bag to have half his seat which was unforseen obstruction to my legs to enjoy their independence. As time moved with wheels of the train, unable to bare the terrible pain I involuntarily placed my leg over his bag, sensing which he came out of his slumber and attacked me with disgusting expression on his face. He was terribly disappointed but didn’t speak anything more than a whisper of unrecognized words. I understood his concern and folded back to the original position which continued to impose pangs on pain on me. It was midnight when my leg was once again over his bag and as he was unsupported by his calmness. Before he announced his discomfort, I began,

“can you please take the bag out of the seat --”

I had my whole sentence incomplete and he interjected sharply

“Then where should I sit, on the ground?”

I was appalled and answered considering all the option that would sooth him.

“You can stretch your legs too, I don’t mind them touching me. I have enough space alongside.”

There was no reply. I sat as he was, not caring to give any reply.

I was stopped from proceeding any further and the remaining three hours after he dropped out of the train was my only solace.

Now, answer me this Anakin. Why did he behave that way? Didn’t he prioritize his possession over the comfort of mine? Wasn’t it the civilized part of brain that stopped him from trusting a stranger and lending help by acquiring some sort of discomfort for himself? I have full faith in me, as I say that his bag has nothing that was worthy of any devotion. All he had in them were piece of clothes which he often used to brush his face. Its time you clear me this dilemma. Is civilization dragging us away from trust and forcing us to attach value to our possession that the person ahead of us?

Anakin: Well Kenobi, what you say is correct. But hear me out, I got some other ways of putting it. Why not consider that old man to have been brought up with trust issues? Maybe he behaved that way because he was incapable of placing himself over your shoes? Human’s when taken individually are incredibly hard to predict. There are trillions of neurons inside our brains, each with their own synapses connected to base of several other neurons. How a man behaves depends on the transaction among these. Mental states are numerous and uncertain. Who knows what he might have witnessed before boarding that train? For me, in the least, it would be wrong to frame a man under the wrongdoings of the whole of humanity in general.

Kenobi: That’s interesting! You have completely taken me inside the brain to validate my opinions against yours. Its great to hear that, and before I stand against the tide of your biochemistry, I want you to know that the very questions you asked in the beginning are the problems I am so eager to explore. When you argued his incapability to place himself under my shoes, there’s no better explanation to this than the failed system that keeps humans from pursuing compassion and values among each other. The neural communication too can be trained to restrain itself from being arrogant with practice of meditation and other exercises. The answer is getting us nowhere but to the point where he is failed by the system which preaches civility.

Anakin: You mean to say that a man is the product of society? That he’s got nothing on his own? Even free will is a false entity then. What are you talking about? If every action of mine depended on the surrounding, why would I show positivity towards my life? You leave me speech-less, I am worried at your notion. I can agree very less. The civility emerges out of every individual before getting applied to the whole of humanity. Civility is the only formula to bring humans out of barbarity. We are selfish beings and care not to kill each other for simplest of our basic needs and civilization is the river that feeds our body with pure intentions at least in the name of fear and justice. If there were no laws, there would be no sanity. If there were no organization, there would be no trust. If there were no education, there would be no humanity. You and I are going through this conversation because we respect each other. More than respecting each other, we respect our ideas and we have the ability to foster the opposing ideas if they are better suited for our needs. I support the idea of free speech. Where would you avail this, if not in a civilization?

Kenobi: What you talk about is true, but in a minimal sense. Let’s take a moment to go through it. Why do we go to war? Isn’t that barbarity in extreme sense? Why do we hate other religions? Aren’t we educated enough to see that we share the common ancestors who emerged out of the forests of savannah? We are organized, but aren’t we separated in the name of culture and nations? It always ends up at picking ideologies more than empathy over an unknown individual. On the other end, when we do get together under a common idea or motive, there has always been an uncivilized hero who happen to rein over all others with his exploitative story telling techniques only to ruin the modest creativity of humans and build a system to disrupt his surrounding and cause chaos. The way you see the world is through a lens that is not exposing the reality of collective stupidity.

Anakin: Collective stupidity is a good choice of word. I adore your view about humans getting wrong when in crowd. I don’t have an answer that would match your expectations but I have something worth considering for. Let’s take yourself as an example. When you set out to go for a evening walk, do you calculate each and every move your body makes? Or do you take a sudden slip on a wet land as an unintended error and move on?

Kenobi: The latter.

Anakin: Superb! Taking this analogy for the flow of human civilization, its wrong for us to measure everything with reference to negativity. Negativity gets a lot more attention than positive events. How can you ignore the inevitable human error? We aren’t perfect, even if we try to bring our surrounding into a perfect order, there’s always entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. Our sole aim in this sense, has always been to reduce the chaos and look around you. What do you see? Gigantic buildings reaching the clouds made up of reliable metals, cement, glass and much more things that were once part of the earth. Isn’t it wonderful! That we extracted them and made up something that is beyond comprehension. Isn’t this simple example, a way of saying that “We exist to develop ourself and bring order out of chaos.” ? We often fail to navigate through the innovations that led us to the present state. I blame and abhor anyone who comes forward to give credit to a single human for his/her contribution in the field of science. It is partly praiseworthy for that man to risk his livelihood to bring a change, but isn’t everything we see around is a collective effort? Can one man with his idea of supersonic jet bring it into existence? We are because we are together.

Kenobi: I expected this argument way before you put it forward. Collectivism is great for fools. Collectivism won’t stand a chance if it follows the same rules throughout the end of time. The middle-ages held the belief that the earth was at the center of the universe. It’s a false thought enforced over the masses. If there were no Copernicus, Giordano Bruno or Galileo Galilei , what would have we still believed in? One man with his ingenious ways of looking at the same world changed the world. Brought it into light, turned darkness into a path where we could see the stars and appreciate the nature for what it is, not for what we want it to be. Collectivism kills truth more than falsehood does because falsehood is always surrounded by a loophole that any rational man can peek at. Lets not overestimate the individuality here, and to be fair, we rarely do it. Individuality is the ability to be courageous over the bombardment of false notions imposed by majority. We want new ideas to reduce the chaos you mentioned. Yes, we need many people to build a skyscraper, but would you rather build a skyscraper with a mud and stone or a new light-weight metal invented by a man with his abilities in chemistry. There you go! You have my answer. Don’t rely on everybody to get your work done. You are a society within yourself.

Anakin: If everyone went on their own way, where would the order exist? If we are alone what is the meaning of it? What is the purpose of our lives? Whom do we seek in time for danger? What is life if not being together for a common cause? I always find meaning with my family, if not for them, I wouldn’t be sane. I am because of them.

Kenobi: I can’t comment on your personal choice, but here’s my question to all those who seek others to stay responsible. Aren’t you embedded with curiosity that would push you to new frontiers? Aren’t you appreciative toward the nature of the universe and try to seek answers behind its wonderful existence? We are never alone when we are curious, for we always have something to explore and understand. When an individual does this, he is always seen as an outlier who does no good to humanity than to write some formulas on a sheet of paper. Collectivism needs something to exploit but individualism needs something to understand- fundamentally. When you look at the triumph of humanity, we don’t read all the action of collective humans, but actions of few who did the change for the future generation to make note of. Why not strive to be that instead of a family man who falls in a loop of hopeless life?

Anakin: A loop of hopeless life? What is it? It sounds like a dark notion.

Kenobi: I got my family. My neighbors got their family. My colleagues have their family. People around the earth have a family. Well, what do you see in a family? A couple called parents. Their parents. The Children. In case of an old-school joint family, many more couples and their children for some generations. What has a man or a woman got to do in this family? He/She needs to take care of others. Does it suffice if he/she is ready to help them for one day of a year? Of course not. You need to be committed to them throughout your life. Along with this comes the price of losing your choices, your dreams and ambition. You can no longer step out because you are stuck. Even if you could, you are afraid of your family’s opinion over your own. You underestimate yourself and refuse to believe that life’s worth exploring. You are doomed. Even if you get a fair support from your family to pursue your dreams when you are young, you are always forced to start your own family at a certain point in time. Along with this memetic forces your biology steps in and forces you to find a mate to reproduce and continue the lineage. When family replaces your daily obligatory curiosity, you have no other choice but to comply to prefer them over your esteemed thought. You are nowhere the same as before. Family must never be the end. I regret to inform you that I am against the very culture of marriage.

Anakin: Sounds interesting! You truly are debunking some of the oldest customs. I am still trying to bring structure to my arguments and before that, go on…why marriage is so unsound?

Kenobi: I feel praised when someone lends ears to my taboo arguments. But before I go mainstream with extreme thoughts I need to ask myself some questions concerning our overview of life. What follows soon after our birth is the major foundation that lays barrier for our thoughts to get over and find a new path. We equip ourself to trust in the god our parents believed. We follow their religion without skepticism. We learn their language, their behavior, imitate their actions over every objects- both living and non-living, we blindly trust their decisions and sit in a class filled with kids of our ages who were there under the orders of their parents. We listen to our teacher. We write exams, get a job, then comes the point where we are stuck and got nothing else to do but get married. The main goal of marriage, earlier on, was to act as an alliance between families. Marriage is a societal symbol of stability and status more than the culmination of two individuals based on their ideas and interests. The first marriage predates the written history, but the first recorded marriage happened between a man and woman on 2350BC in Far East. When a couple get married, they start to live together, they have sex, they share their life-story, they care for each other, they support each other, find meaning with each other, aspires to achieve goals together and contribute to the society building activity. So far, so good. Its great what a couple could achieve if they understand each other, but the problem to this legendary attachment arrives with the arrival of a baby. Its true that we are always being manipulated by our DNA to look out for a mate and reproduce as much as possible for its own survival. The only obstruction to the power of DNA is nowhere to be found. Marriage on the other hand makes it possible for it to achieve more efficiently invoking morality and well being of society. Its also wrong to consider that there is always Love in marriage. Love is a new subject that arose to its peak with literature, before that human marriage was no less than a contract. Women were treated like a modern day vehicle, feed her with fuel and she will do what you tell her to do. Its too mind draining to go through the history of marriage with all the implication it influenced over the system of thought and we better get back to the point of babies and the world of havoc they create.

Anakin: You are blaming everything if you are blaming babies. Babies are cute, cuddly, innocent, correct, honest, curious, interesting, special, smart, entertaining, unproblematic and extraordinary. They are blessings in disguise! How can you be so prudent and inconsiderate? Explain it to me and I don’t want any deviation from this topic.

Kenobi: Your enthusiasm excites me. Without any further ado, I will begin sharply. If every baby is special- as you earlier said, why is not every adult special? If we become adults after being born as special babies, at what period-of-time do we turn away from special to not- special? What changed in between? I know the answer and you very well know it too. It’s the society or in clear terms- the civilization. Is that a worthy argument? I hope it is and if you have anything against me about this- hold on! I have many more like these.

Babies are often termed as cute- not just human babies, even a pig’s babies are cute, but once they reach a certain threshold they lose that incredible adorableness. Just observe how irritating are the kids after they cross the age of 4 or 5. They are curious of course and I wouldn’t blame them for their actions alone. It’s the parents that I loathe before rejecting the annoyance caused by kids. When a kid asks to his father, how does a whatsapp message get transferred from one system to another? The father simply rejects the question and forces his kid to focus on the syllabus preached by the school. This is not acceptable. The parents themselves drained from everyday work they do for the future of their offspring never bother to consult them with same civility. They strip away the curiosity with harsh remarks and degenerate the skepticism and rationality out of their minds. The kid never asks a question and never bothers to understand the nature of his surrounding ever again. The cause and effect are mostly cyclic than a vertical fall of human intelligence. To break this cycle is to bring out and assign a new babysitter for every kid who fosters their curiosity until it reaches the age of self-sufficiency. This is impossible if we consider the present state of the world, and it could be made credible if one of the parents stand away from daily job to take this job.

Kids are the most sensible things in the world. If an adult imitate a kid by being curious and innovative in his ways of action and thought, he is often seen as a Genius or a man without civility. The more you ask, the more bored and irritated they are. If a society cannot tolerate an adult who is inherently kid, then there is no way kids are fostered with better mental nurture. I strive to be a kid lost in imagination- connecting unrelated things to unleash impossible possibilities and I am mostly avoided. I know these arguments are too weak and feeble for any fixated man to break, but my point is simple and clear. The kids are liked only for their supple beauty and not for their curiosity.

Anakin: What you say is truth. I have to agree at some point but what I have to ask here is, why doesn’t an outlier- the one who brings change in the current flow of events of humanity, change this system for good? Doesn’t it make all of them cowards? Or are they selfish enough to not get involved in the working of crowd?

Kenobi: You tell me. If you were taken out of your community and asked for an advice for their well-being, would you help them with open heart. Even though you would, you would always hold a pint of grudge under your throat before making any choice. This is the problem with outliers, they simply doesn’t care. Even their most advanced achievements and contributions towards society begins with nothing but selfishness. They are selfish and all they do is do it for their own self- like a child who throws away pecks of bread for birds- not because the birds are hungry but because the kid feels happy and satisfied. This act of feeding is taken as generosity more than an act of gaining happiness.

Anakin: I have lost my way in this battle. I am merely asking questions more than creating my own hypothesis against you.

Kenobi: Questions are a great way to find a way out of uncertainty. You are no less than a Socrates if you are enquiring me until you reach a conclusion. The more you ask, the more you know. Now! Its time for me to do the same. I like to be Socrates too. Answer me this. What do you think is the conclusion of this uncanny discussion?

Anakin: Why jump to conclusion so early? Are we done with everything?

Kenobi: I am your biggest fan right now. You asked me a question for a question. Why did you do that? Were you thinking of becoming a real Socrates?

Anakin: I can argue the same right now! Let’s stop this, I know its hard to beat someone when one is ready to ask a question. I got the takeaway already. The conclusion out of this vague yet beautiful conversation is that there is no conclusion.

Kenobi: What makes you say so?

Anakin: Well, denying collective efforts without a change brought upon by an outlier is as insignificant as an outlier being out of the picture and the crowds follow their blind path.

Kenobi: Exactly! It is hard to accept the truth than debate all day long about it. At the end of the day, satisfaction is what matters and nothing else can take over that feeling. No matter how much you earn, how much you are loved or how much you are respected…If you aren’t satisfied by the day you went through, there is no peace and no hope for the next day. As Diogenes once asked Alexander the Great to stop blocking the sunlight, there was nothing the emperor could do to stop him from experiencing simplest of things in profound way.

Anakin: It's time we enjoy moments and not carry the hate towards the future moments. All this while it was like talking with a master.

Kenobi: I felt the same too. There are no masters in the world, all are learners with something to learn and everything to gain.

Anakin: Meet you soon, sire.

Kenobi: Hope to meet you too, sire.

.    .    .