The nature of inspiration
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Over the last week, I have been having an e-mail conversation with a college friend on the nature of faith and inspiration. It boiled down to the strength (or lack of it) of one’s faith. I am not a faithful, being inclined towards the skeptic’s ways. I call myself an agnostic, which puts me in the enviable position of being able to claim all faiths as mine and to question and dissect them as and when I want.
I figured people get enraged over things because things sometimes go against their idea of what the world should be like. We all have a picture of the world in our heads. All our pictures differ. Sometimes only very marginally. To be content, we close our eyes to things that have no place in our little pictures. Sometimes we deliberately reach over and erase things (or at least try to) so our pictures don’t look messed up.
I saw the Da Vinci Code movie and found it interesting. I hadn’t read the book and probably won’t, for a while, at least till the memory of the movie becomes something of a blur in my head. It was in the nature of National Treasure - with a conspiracy theory behind it - something old (ancient in this case) - revelations - chases - and a cool ending (the holy grail part). Call me a sucker for drama coz that’s what I am. And I also don’t compare movies. Am not a reviewer, so I remember only the high-points (very useful).
I found nothing objectionable in the movie. The obviously heretic premise is just a possibility. Like everything else all around us is. Are vampires possible? If you go by a lot of plausible explanations all over the web on how a vampire’s metabolism would work you are very likely to turn to the faith. There is nothing to really disprove the entire Star Wars universe either. If it’s really long ago and far away then we will never know. Though the authors of the works above (including Dan Brown) have made it that much easier for us by clearly labelling the works ‘fiction’. So… there.
Next point - the faith thing again. The protestors seemed to believe that the very possibility that Jesus was a mortal man robs all Christianity of its purpose.
Not so.
Why is it that nothing short of a god will inspire us? Why is human always fallible? And (I borrow from Tom Hanks in the movie) why can’t human be divine?
I think it’s really inspiring if a man as human as any of us - human enough to fall in love and marry and have kids could sacrifice himself as he did. The death had a meaning. More meaning than a lot of lives do.
Some might call this wishful thinking but I am of the firm belief that the human animal is much favoured by the fates. The fates are immensely patient with him. They watch over him, egging him on towards perfection all the time. They despair when he stumbles (he does that a lot).
I despair too. So I went home and picked up a recently picked Marvel Comics special issue called Marvels. The book was interesting but sucked for the most part. A page towards the end however, put everything in perspective for me.
The scene is of J Jonah Jameson being interviewed by a someone who is working on a book. Jameson (you might remember him from the movie too) is that badass editor of The Daily Bugle, the newspaper that frequently blasts Spider-Man and which also unknowingly (ha ha) employs the hero’s alter-ego Peter Parker as a freelance photographer.
Interviewer: …how can you exhort Spider-Man to act, by calling him a coward — but when he does act, you label him a criminal?
Jameson: Phil, if he was a hero — if your ‘Marvels’ were truly the noble, selfless crusaders they claim — how could the rest of us measure up? How could we meet that standard?
So, do we look up to gods because we think ourselves incapable of good? And so the possibility that one of us can do what gods do (good, for god’s sake!) is… uncomfortable? Are we that bad? I don’t want to believe it. I can hear the fates groaning as they despair though.
Posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 8:53 pm and filed under movies, people, faith, essays.
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[…] Vijayendra raises an interesting point after watching The Da Vinci Code. […]
Interesting point of view. It is funny how people don’t want to change their views.
But I guess the main thing is that people need to believe in something bigger than themselves - something they can aspire to be. And if somebody says that the person you thought was great is not actually great (magical great) - the letdown is bad. And that causes problems.
I personally agree with you. Great post!!
That was a fantastic thought, Mo! Very elaborately thought over and written..Mind if I said something? May be you could have dissertation on this!
Coming to the post, ‘Human Gods’ aren’t an uncommon phenomenon in India - people like the Kanchi Seers, Ramana Maharishi etc from the South and the incarnations of Lord Vishnu are believed to have lived as one among us humans! I think that’s a new concept for Christianty and hence the ripples..
@swapna: People not wanting to change makes perfect sense. I envy people who can stick to their faith. It’s a great plus. I merely raised a few questions that appeared logical to my mind.
anupama v: Thanks beti! New and old however don’t matter as long as things make sense. Hindus protest as much as any other specimen. And no thanks, no more dissertations. Have had enough. Academics take the fun out of your fave topics.
This whole God-human thing is not about fallibility alone either. There is the more obvious thing of mortality to be reckoned.
And the Gods envy us here, Achilles says to Kassandra in Troy, You can never be lovelier than you are now, that’s because you are mortal. (or something like that)
Daya
Good post, V.
Well thought out and all.
I’ve tried a million times to write about it but I get all distracted with the tangential issues it brings up.
Well… Hmmm… (I’m thinking!)
I agree with the bit about Jesus’ death meaning more than many lives that have been lived.
I also agree with the part where you talk about living in denial.
But I’m convinced that those who DO live in denial come face to face with their conscience every now and then. Our conscience is very powerful Vijayendra, its the candle in the drawer when the electricity goes. We may not light it, but we know its there…
@Tanmay: There are certain tribes in India for whom the accepted way of living is murdering and plundering. You might remember this was one of the British’s prime concerns along with Sati and female infanticide abolition. I wonder what these tribespeople’s consciences look like. I feel consciences are formed out of conditioning.
Correct. However, there is an inherent behavioural pattern(what we call instinct) which has been conditioned in the 5000-7000 odd years of our existence. Which means we “inherit” a certain amount of our conscience thanks to the gene pool.
We all have to look above, metaphorically speaking, to be inspired. To attain something - tangible or intangible - by stepping out of our comfort zone. Being religious or agnostic or atheist should not stray anyone from identifying the ‘perfect’ person to emulate. When that idea or person is tainted, then the world comes down thuddingly, and chaos reigns…ergo, the need to cling onto something - justified or not.
Point, Arvind. But one hopes ‘looking up’ isn’t above ‘looking around’ in the priority list.