Amidst two of my closest friends suffering tension in their respective marital lives, I have realized how a perfectly reasonable human being is capable of becoming unbelievably apathetic as well as irrationally empathetic to another person’s suffering. After spending several years believing that we are in complete control of our minds and our lives, I am observing a very different perspective now.
Life presents to us choices at every point in time. In a sense, the choice that we make at a given moment determines what happens to us in future. But isn’t that choice driven by the wisdom of our past interpretations of the tiniest experiences around us?
Weirdly enough, the exact same event could have different interpretations for two persons with varying prejudices, value systems or mental faculties. If we trace back, the chain of interpretation starts at the very moment of our inception - when we possess nothing but a body and a certain level of mental capability. Let us imagine a hypothetical situation from the world of Oliver Twist:
Three orphan kids (A, B and C), with no previous prejudice about the world , enter an orphanage that offers extreme deprivation and discipline. Everyday they see that the matron enjoys all the benefits (mouthwatering food, warm clothes, comfortable home etc) that they can ever fancy. Once, child A requests the matron to let him taste a mango and gets beaten up for that request. Child A, perhaps then, may regard the world as divided between the powerful and the weak. He might start panicking about his safety and eventually become a compliant but fearful civilian. Child B, who happens to closely observe the joy on the face of the matron enjoying the mango, may see a proof of the link between power and joy. He might value pleasure and power going forward. Child C, who is shaken by the injustice done to child A, may make up his mind that the world ought to be made just, by any means necessary. He might begin to consider justice as the most important value. The three children are likely to then observe all the future events with glasses tinted by their prejudices and value systems.
It is horrific for me to imagine the implications of the thought that's taking shape here. Doesn't a person become a brutal murderer because his experiences have made him deprived, desperate, adamant and inhumane - all at the same time? To would extent has he been driven by the circumstances and how much is he truly responsible?
In fact, isn’t it even illogical for a sacred cow to judge the morality of a ferocious tiger? What the cow sees as choice is actually a necessity for the tiger. And both of them are blinded their respective conditioning.
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