Thursday, August 6, 2020

Outlook on Life and World View

Now that I have given a list of probabilities and possibilities in life in general as described by others, including religious leaders, if I do not put my own outlook and perspective, here, I am doing an injustice to this blog site where I have raised even the possibility or probability of aliens living among us using shape shifting technology.
 
I am scientific in outlook and generally empathetic to the down trodden man on the street, and certainly, in a way of Carl Marx ideology but quite liberal in attitude to somebody like Bertrand Russel (borrowed ideas from them liberally).
Charles Darwin was a hero to me and I generally hated the Church but never showed it externally, except leaving the Catholic school abruptly, causing concern to my parents.
I cannot remember the details of my early childhood.
I hated the cloak that the priests wear.
I was forcibly put in a dark room by one of them, probably due to trespassing law of the church.
I neither feared the guy nor the dark treatment.
Then, I was thrown out of the class by the Bible class master, for asking probing questions.
Then from outside during the morning break, I told my friends to ask more probing questions, and eventually all Buddhist children were thrown out and while my Christian friends toiled in the class we played, "catch me if you can" type of games.
By the way, I excelled in short distance running, and the school was known for producing long distance endurance runners.
I had a good friend, named Donald Williams, a Jaffna Tamil, who remained in the class due to his good upbringing and conservatism.
I abruptly left the school and my friend within a month back to Jaffna.
If I remember right, his father was a school inspector of those days.
He kept in touch with me and he failed (would have been a better doctor than me) to enter the medical school.
He ultimately left to Australia, may be to have "one final go" at medicine but failed to keep in touch, like most of my friends who have migrated.
If goals (in his case, father who was a school inspector) were set for children at an early stage, when they fail they go into a core.
My friend Donald in my assessment would have made a model professor of medicine, if he was left to go on his own pace.
I was offered double promotion twice.
I declined, simply because, I did not want to break up with my class friends who were more valuable to me, even to this day, than the teachers of my time. 

Their assessment of me was precise. 
 
I helped two guys who had higher goals having failed the advanced level twice.
I emphasized the need to enter the university as the goal and not to worry about the career.
One entered medicine and had enormous problems including alcoholism but made it through with my tutoring.
The other who failed, has a PhD from America.
I hated PhD, for me a non-returner (just like in Buddhist terminology of achieving the supreme goal) with limited scope.
I cannot remember the questions I raised, probably not philosophical but topical of the day.
I did not like my mother trying Pali stanza on me, either.
I may have asked "Do a kid at my age who was uncorrupted need  the Christian Theology against a simple but budding scientist?"
 
There was again then the Conspiracy of the Church, of conversion and offering government jobs preferentially to Christians.
There was political movement or anti- Christian movement, by Buddhist guys.
I felt they were mad hatters, equally bad.
These guys promoted national dress which I hate to present day.
To me these guys are stupid and intolerant sometime worse than the Church.
Coming to the national dress I new a guy from a leading Buddhist school, who for his own arrogance (he was much junior but a guy with perseverance, if not intelligence) wanted to wear the national dress to the block.
If he asked me then, I would have not only discouraged but physically obstructed him entering, the block.
All done before I knew it.
He made a hash of things and his goal to be part of the medicine department was thwarted by his own stupidity.
The conservatism was deeply ingrained in our time and attacking it from front end was detrimental.
Even back end was not possible.
He was not shortlisted for any of the the permanent or seconded posts with me applying and I had to withdraw five of the six applications, finally waiting until department of pathology felt vacant.
That, I got it by pleading the Secretary of Health, that I hated pathology, please do not send me there.
I got the appointment in double quick time.
Whereas, the guy was not called for a single interview.
He came to see me and asked for help. I said I am not a university guy but seconded officer from health on temporary basis.
On his perseverance, I asked him to apply to biochemistry department, depleted with medical guys with all chemistry graduates who hated me because, I would stand up to them, and in person on medical matters.
He was selected to the permanent staff on probationary basis.
I can remember then, the Dean under whom I was working, asking me about him of his reliability.
I said his goal is medicine and not biochemistry, investing on research under him is liability for the university money, hard to come by then under NM and Sirima.
He had no idea of a research project and one day, he came to me again.
I asked him to come back in two weeks.
I told him to study relationship of grey hair to thyroxine, which he did and I scrutinized his writing before it was presented.
It was accepted by the researched committee without any corrections.
He, within six months disappeared and did not have the courtesy to tell me.
No surprise at all to me.
Years later, he came for a guest lecture in the same department and I was the only listener in the audience.
He was shocked but we had a cup of tea at the canteen and that was the last time I saw him.
The Church press its buttons to a degree and no more.
I would have been expelled from the school but they did not.
I made my own decision to leave the school abruptly, making it easy for them.
These movements probably had made me to be critical of all religions and they could not change my inborn scientific quests.
Even, though, I joined a leading Buddhist school in the city, I can claim that I learned the first few vulgar vernaculars there but in defense of the Christian school, not a single vulgar word but all the niceties to fellow beings.
I did have a liking for Karma (but I want it happening in present tense than in the future tense), in other words its objectivity, in real time and terms.
I was not comfortable with rebirth, since I have to kick the bucket to enjoy it.
Being a medical man for me this life with all its limitations is better to hold onto than give it up lightly.
In that sense, I strongly oppose suicide and euthanasia, even my own dog.

So rebirth was itching point of context.

Having said that, I have had minimal premonition or few deja vu feeling of wanting to go to a country like New Zealand.
Though, the period I spent there was very short, nevertheless, very eventful in real life terms.
I have a strange familiarity with United Kingdom and finding jobs with frequent changes was not to my liking.
For some reason I wanted to leave U.K. and strangely enough ended up down under N. Z.
Just in speculation, not in any way by rationalization, I have a strange feeling of familiarity of having been there in a past life.
For Ceylon, except for lovely warm weather, stunning scenery, waterfalls and large array of birds, I have some aversion, probably due to violent  politics and the ungainly antics of Buddhist monks.
In other words, I am ambivalent about life, rebirth and Kamma, altogether, an unwelcome affliction to all forms of religions.
I do not want to be labeled an atheist but a free thinker with scientific bend.



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