Is friendship driven by purposes?

Friendship is a nice name of the ugly game.

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

This is, in fact, a very ugly quote. It clearly shows practical mindset. Still everyone agrees with it. That means everyone in the world, when making a friend, (at least) subconsciously expects some sort of help or favor from the person. When the time comes it is sought, and if declined then one would call to mind something like this quote, and boom! Friendship is doomed!

Actually the thing is without purposes friendship (for that matter, any relationship) is not possible. You might feel agitated when I say this. Not your fault. Sometimes the purposes are so hidden in your subconscious that even you will never know about it. I will try to familiarize you with the hidden functioning of human mind in this regard.

I have explained what friendship is in the article titled What is friendship? For those who have not read the article I would quote my definition of friendship here:

Friendship is understanding and respect.

A friend is any relation who understands your thoughts, and respects them. It means the one who understands and respects what you are.

Now you tell me, what is the first thing you get when you make a friend? What does understanding and respect mean? It means you earned importance. And who doesn’t love being important in other people’s eyes! So, isn’t earning importance a purpose? The desire for importance is very strong in human mind. That’s precisely the reason you are always ready for making new friends. Do you ever think that ‘Okay, I have had enough friends now and I am quite happy with all the friends I have. I need not another friend’? No. What happens then? You go on making new and new and new friends. And then you have more friends than you have time for. Then you have to prioritize friends. If need be, eliminate some. On what basis you would prioritize friends? Of course, you will consider the welfare of none other than yourself. It’s a natural process, and so subtle that you don’t even realize doing all that.

People don’t agree with it when I say “prioritize friends”. I understand, it does not sound good. But let me tell you it’s true. Haven’t you ever categorized your friends? Best friend, just friends, hi-hello friends… Sounds funny, but yes, you do have those categories even though the titles may be different. When you look at the definition of friendship you know that anyone who stands up to it (meaning, who understands your thoughts and respects them) is a friend. Say, you have hundred relations; all standing up to it; so all are your friends. But do you consider them all equal? It’s difficult both mentally and practically. That’s the reason you would make those categories. You will allocate your friends into the category which you think appropriate for each one, the calculation of which would be based on your own welfare alone. Now, what all things you take into consideration while deciding the right category for a friend, you alone know. You categorized friends means you “prioritized friends”. Prioritization is only done considering self-welfare. And self-welfare is only ascertained considering one’s needs and their fulfillment.

The needs and purposes taken into consideration may vary from materialistic to spiritual; from sex to moral support; from fun to knowledge, and so on. The list of needs and purposes is endless. It depends upon your circumstances and the depth of your person. In any case, friendship would remain only as long as the needs and purposes of friends are reconciled. Moreover, better the reconciliation better would be the friendship. Every friendship starts with a purpose, materialistic or spiritual; and then this reconciliation constantly decides its path.

Looks like an ugly game, doesn’t it? Yeah, friendship is a nice name of the ugly game. But along with this, another thing to understand is that this game, however ugly, is indispensable. Every one has to play it if one wants to live in the world of "intelligent creatures".

It sounds ugly just because we have idealized the concept of friendship, which is wrong and needless. Friendship is doubtless a good and healthy social activity, but certainly not of supremacy which it is exalted to.

The reason behind writing this article is not to discourage friendships, but to break the idealized belief. So that the next time you lose a friend or your friend hurts you then you shouldn’t get affected because now you know the dynamics behind friendship.

Why do you love your country?

Please don’t wait until some mighty aliens come to dominate our whole world to realize that we are one humanity, one world.

For the sake of ease I have addressed this article to Indians. But it is meant equally for all the countries of the world.

I am an advocate of universal unity. For me, there’s only one country to love; and that’s this world. I don’t see any sense in people playing your-country-my-country game anymore. I don’t have any problem with your loving what you call your country but it’s your narrow focus that’s troubling me. If things were in my hands I would produce not citizens of the nation but citizens of the world. Quite a many people around me are matured to say we are Indians first and then of Gujarat (one of the states in India) but a very few I see matured enough to say we are of the world first and then Indians. This is the difference between citizens of the nation and citizens of the world.

As I have expressed in my article What nationality and religion are you?, mother Nature, who has created the world, has not drawn lines on the planet, then why have humans drawn lines on the maps and divided the world into pieces! Why the rivalry and wars! I would go so far as to say that unless the whole humanity is mad nations can not be!

As I see people loving and taking pride in the little pieces of lands which they call their country it makes me think what they really mean by country and what could be the reason they happen to love one piece of land with borders drawn around it more than the other same pieces of lands.

If you dare to think rationally then there are batter reasons for being citizens of the world than there are for being country-focused the way you are. In fact, all the reasons you’ve got for loving your country are rather no-reasons. You are just brainwashed into loving this phony entity called country which is actually nothing else but a system of politics.

Imagine what would build into the child’s mind who is made to recite songs like “Sare jahan se achcha hindustan hamara” (meaning, our India is the best in the world) at the age when he is not even capable of gauging how big the world is, let aside experiencing the world. And then this piece of shit every Indian child is made to say every morning in school –

(It’s called Indian National Pledge)

India is my country and all Indians are my brothers and sisters.
I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage.
I shall always strive to be worthy of it.
I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders, respect, and treat everyone with courtesy.
To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion.
In their well being and prosperity alone, lies my happiness.

Pardon my language but it sounds utterly irrational and boils my blood to see it; because this psychological treatment (called brainwashing) is not much different from that given to children for making terrorists of them.

It’s an appeal to every country. Infuse in children’s mind the truth, which is: One humanity, one world. Write songs about the unified world; write “the world anthem”, and replace everything focusing on the country with those focusing on the world. I bet if you give up your narrow attitude and teach your children to love the world instead of loving the country then no one can stop the world from becoming a peaceful place. Remember, loving the world doesn’t mean being apathetic towards one’s surroundings. It’s just about assuming right perspective which is much needed in these times.

Today I want to give you good reasons to shift your focus from “the country” to “the world”; to be the citizen of the world. First we will see what country actually is (not what you are brainwashed into thinking), and why you happen to love your country –

A country is a political system with which your life is woven since you are born within the boundaries of the system. And you love your country first because you were brainwashed into doing so and then continue to love it after growing up also because your economic, social (and whatever other) interests are connected with this system and are being governed by it. There is no other meaning of a country and no other reason why you love it.

Now I will take up all the major reasons I could find why people say they love their country and explain how they are irrational, and thereby give you better reasons to shift your focus onto loving the world.

Philosophy and thoughts:

You might say you love India for you like Indian philosophy and thoughts.

Listen, philosophy and thoughts have everything to do with persons, not with the piece of land called India. Philosophy and thoughts have come out of some peoples’ mind and not erupted from the piece of land concerned. In this case yours is like when you admire the thoughts of Ayn Rand you will say “I admire Ayn Rand.” And when you admire the thoughts of Vivekananda you will attach Vivekananda with India and say “I love India for it has given us Vivekananda." If you admire philosophy and thoughts in this way then you must give each and every land its due love.

You know, philosophy and thoughts don’t have boundaries. Great values are brought about by great people, and great people are great not because they were born on a particular land. They would be great wherever they take birth. Thoughts have nothing to do with what’s called county. It’s a mistake to think they've anything to do with a piece of land.

Own place:

You might say you love India because it’s your own place.

Okay. It’s natural for one to develop some attachment with one’s own place. I see. It’s like you love your house more than the other houses even if yours is smaller (or dirtier) compared to the others.

But don’t you see there’s a huge difference between your house which you have lived in for quite a while and know every corner of, and a country of which you have probably not even seen more than 50% part. I don’t know how many parts of what you call your country you have been to. I conducted a little survey by asking 20 random people I knew how much of India they have seen. 15 out of 20 said they’ve not been to more than 4 states and only one person had been to 6 states of India. India has 28 states as of today if I am right. And besides “having been to” some state doesn’t necessarily mean seeing whole of the place! That means, for the majority of people in India most of the country is “unseen”. In such a case what to understand of their love for their country? Because when they say they love their country they suggest that they love a country of which most part is as remote to them as US or China. Could it be called “blind love”?

Culture:

You might say you love India because of its culture.

I will tell you what culture is. Culture is “values and knowledge” shared by a group of people. In a sense, every individual carries in himself culture which may be different from that carried by the other. As people deal with each other in routine and be interdependent their “individual values and knowledge” have to form into “collective values and knowledge” to create a larger culture which is common for a group. Look at India. India is called the land of many cultures. Almost all of its states have their own culture. But as you can see collectively it’s called Indian culture. Why? It’s because today these people are not living independently. They are interdependent and they have to be so in a cooperative way. They are formed into a larger group called India. Whenever such merger of people into a larger group takes place the cultures have to take up a larger form to maintain smooth functioning. This is the reason all these cultures are collectively called Indian culture.

Belonging to one state of India what you really are aware of is the culture of that state. It’s very unlikely that you would know the cultures of the other states. So, actually what you love is the culture of your state. But still you say you love Indian culture and thereby you are covering all the unknown cultures too which fall within the political boundary of what is called India. This is precisely the reason national unity is maintained. And that’s certainly a good thing.

Now further expand your perspective. Today you see that the countries are not living independently, too. The whole world is interdependent. In that case don’t you think it calls for further forming and acceptance of larger culture which would be called “the world's culture”? For how long will you hold this narrow perspective by which you see Indian culture as more important than the world's culture? The human culture? Understand that by accepting higher importance of the human culture your country’s cultures won't cease to exist. But then there won’t be “your culture” and “my culture”. Everything will be “our culture”. The world's culture.

***

Now consider this:

Terrorist attacks in Kashmir agitate you even though Kashmir is far, far away from your place. You would say that’s because it’s a part of India, your country. How about bomb blasts in Pakistan? Do you feel anything about it? You would say it’s not our concern. Right. Suppose if tomorrow Pakistan and India again become one country as they were before then would that make you happy? Yeah! Suppose then if Taliban spreads terror in Karachi (a city in Pakistan now) would you feel concerned? To whomever I have asked this has said: Yes, because it would be a part of our country then.

This makes it clear that not the philosophy and thoughts, nor the feeling of “own place”, nor the culture… what you actually love is a political system called India because your interests are governed by it; and that’s the reason your love never goes beyond the boundaries of the system. When the boundaries of the political system you are born in expand, so will your love. What sort of love is that?

The only people who are benefiting from the existence of different countries are politicians. Where politics is more important than truth any hope for peace is futile.

Please don’t wait until some mighty aliens come to dominate our whole world to realize that we are one humanity, one world.