The Principle of Duality : 50 Shades of Gray Area

              Apparently the entire nation is holding up torches (just a more dynamic way of saying banners) against something a politician said the other day, my Facebook news feed has become a complaint box for the patriotic Indian charged with the sudden surge of national pride. Can you guess what intrigues me here? Is it the insensitive comments made by him? No. Are the comments disturbing me? Well, they are irritating, taking up half of my screen, but no. It's the fact that so many of our decisions are so heavily influenced by emotions.

              Reading Sherlock Holmes last night (A Scandal In Bohemia), I happened to come across a sentence that made more sense to me than deleting the entire How I Met Your Mother series to make place for House M.D. Arthur Conan Doyle says "Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own of high power lenses would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his." He speaks of Sherlock Holmes, who in all respects is the ideal reasoning machine.

                To connect both the above paragraphs, any of us can take our own example. A startling majority of our decisions are based on emotions, feelings, which allow the unwelcome presence of the factor of irrationality in them. Every decision has a reason, however spontaneous it may seem. Which is why when asked the question "why?" people who answer "just like that" should be given a 619.(No, the 1 is not a typo.) And, with every reason, comes it's basis in fact. Now, here's the fun part. In any rational method of taking a decision, it should be modified to suit the facts in consideration, but what happens when, as wonderfully depicted by Looney Tunes, an angel and a devil with your face start quarrelling in your head? We begin to modify facts to suit the decision. See the vicious circle? This snowballs from a tiny moment of weakness to a moment of brutal realization of the extent of irrationality. This entire complex mental turmoil is best explained by none other than Bollywood Cinema.(Oh, the irony.) In just about any action movie, there comes a time when the hero has the barrel of a suspiciously waxy looking revolver at the forehead of the villain; when suddenly he hesitates because his anger is overshadowed by the goodness of his heart. He lowers the weapon to the sound of a sad dirge, begins to walk away in slow motion with heroic strides, the fact that half his leg is blown off doesn't hamper his swag,when the blurry villain in the background pops a cap in his ass. If Bollywood movies are to teach us anything, it is this. 

                 Emotions are an intrinsic part of what make us human. But that doesn't necessarily mean they should be mixed with every other thing that humans do as though they are the cerebral equivalent of salt. Facts remain facts irrespective of how the armageddon in your head has ended. Being impartial and almost inhumanely neutral about these things has always helped me get a crystal clear understanding of the situation I am in, and how to deal with it. This approach is often received as cold or even ruthless at times because it is rather counter intuitive.It works, but not many try it. They prefer to allow emotions to cloud their judgement because not doing so would mean accepting the fact that we do have an option to not be human.

That's what I'm talkin' about!!