A recent talk with a friend left me pondering about something that I always thought was obvious- who decides how I use my intellect (assuming that I have some!!!)? If I have the capability to think and imagine, what use should it be put to?
The discussion led to two strikingly different views- one that said that the decision is completely personal and the other that said that seemingly personal decision is also bound by some social ties.
Let’s assume that I am a thinker and like researching on some topic that happens to be of minimal importance to the society. I have the ability to sit and ponder over such an abstract and complex issue. This means that I definitely have the ability to think about the more worldly issues.
Knowing that the society I live in is still in need of the solutions to its day-to-day problems, that a number of people around me are more in need of the basic primary education, that there are numerous problems about poverty, education and health in our society, I should rather use my energies in trying to figure out a solution to some of these problems, rather than getting into the mysteries of nature, which to a great probability I would never solve. I am bound by a duty to work for those people around me who were not fortunate enough to reach the level where I am and are right now struggling hard to get their next meal. Is it justified that rather than thinking about them, I worry about the black holes up there in the sky??? Had Gandhi continued working as a barrister, we would have not been independent; he would have not been a Mahatma.
And then there is another view.
If designing a telescope for looking at that far off star interests me more than designing an education system for my society, why shouldn’t I do it? It is true that the education system would do more good to the society than the telescope, but does it mean that I am bound to do that. Shakespeare wrote great plays, proving that he had a high emotional quotient. Would he have rather been a social worker than a writer? NO. If forced to do so, he probably would have not been any good; he would have probably reached a mental block and would have been just another man doing something he didn’t want to and not doing what he desperately wanted to. His decision of pursuing what he liked the most and not what the society wanted the most made him a legend and resulted in the beautiful creations that we even after so many years cannot help praising. So why not let everyone do what he or she wants to and allow the collective effect of all these acts move the society.
Two arguments- equally strong- but one has to be wrong. Which one???
