What if someone told you that your success is an outcome of your luck? Is that enough for you to lash out and explain how your hard work and dedication have gotten you to the position where you are right now? What if I told you that your success is indeed a product of two contradictions? So why is the nature of your success contradictory? Before you could understand that, let's take a couple of minutes to get to know these contradictions. Contradiction 1: Your belief that it's your hard work and countless sleepless nights that have abled you to climb that success ladder and stand at the top. But, on the other hand, Contradiction 2: Your awareness that Contradiction 1 is a lie and your luck has played an important role in getting you where you are. This antithetical concept is the Success Paradox. But why does your success require to be paradoxical? The truth is, it doesn't. But it's the best approach that one should take to remain in touch with reality. It is human natu...
Living in a concrete jungle doesn't necessarily make us civilized. If there ever was a time when humanity didn't distinguish itself on the basis of caste, colour, race, country, and religion then it must have been the most civilized era since the dawn of human civilization.
But, what is the definition of discrimination...? We'll come back to that.
There was a time when a study, known as the "Black Baby Test" was conducted in which kids were put to a test to determine which doll out of two, one black and one white, was the ugly one. Surprisingly, the results were skewed in one direction. Most of the kids claimed the black doll to be the ugly one. When asked about their reasoning for picking the black doll, the kids replied with the color of the doll which made them think that black is bad and white is good. So, what was the reason for such a horrific perspective?
The researchers concluded that this perspective developed in children as a consequence of the entertainment industry of that particular era in which the role of the bad guy was predominantly played by black people. And apparently, this was enough to lead to an overall perception of black being bad and white being good. Does this sound somewhat stupid? Maybe.
Now consider this...
If one was to generalize these results across the spectrum of discrimination, not only based on skin color but also on religion, caste, and maybe even a nation, I think that we'd easily be able to tell how stupid the whole scenario of discrimination actually is. I mean, we all are naturally Homo sapiens and everything on top of that is as secondary as a faded smartphone case, which can be easily swapped for a new one.
We are the dominant species of the planet. If there were an alien invasion tomorrow and being the most intelligent species on the planet, the aliens ask to meet our representative, who shall that be? I think that they will rethink their decision to claim Homo sapiens to be the most intellectual species on the planet just by seeing Homo sapiens kill other Homo sapiens. And before anyone says that all species do that, let me answer that for you as well. Yes, other species do that as well, all of the animal kingdom discriminates but, if we have the audacity to claim ourselves to be the dominant, most intelligent, and representative species of planet Earth, it becomes our responsibility to behave differently than all the other species which are, in our opinion, inferior to us. And if we can't even do a simple thing like that then there is no other species dumber than us.
Maybe, the root cause for such a behaviour is nothing but our natural makeup. We have evolved from chimps. Okay, I know that this is not entirely correct. Somewhere up the lineage, humans and chimps share a common ancestor. That is what evolution actually suggests. We are an emotion-driven illogical life form. We pool our natural resources to build walls, borders, and weapons of mass destruction instead of focusing on scientific advancement and the progress of civilization as a whole. Our pride comes from calling ourselves a democracy, if we are lucky enough (ahem... North Korea), but I get reminded of Osho when I think about democracy.
"Because democracy basically means Government by the people, of the people, for the people but, the people are retarded. So, let us say, Government by the retarded, of the retarded, for the retarded." - Osho.
If you had only one house... scratch that, if you had only one room to live in for your entire life, would you try to keep the trash outside? or, would you keep it close to you and wait for it to occupy every inch of space and eventually suffocate you to your demise? If the answer is not apparent, I wouldn't like to share a room with you. As far as we can tell, Earth is the only habitable planet that we have. Should we keep the trash habits, concepts, thoughts, and actions close to ourselves and wait for them to consume us all or, should we throw them out? Maybe, an alien invasion is what it will actually take us to set our differences aside and unite as a species.
Our focus shouldn't be on finding the reasons behind the conclusion of the Black Baby Test. Our focus should be on finding the need as well as the reason for conducting the Black Baby Test. And if we can truly find the reason which compels humanity to conduct such a study, maybe then we wouldn't even need a definition of discrimination because that shall be a concept which will exist in the realm of non-existence.
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Woohoo! You go boy!! Some food for thought.! Cheers to try breaking barriers!
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