I sometimes write blogs that my family and friends do not entirely approve of. There is some history behind the same. They want to make sure that I do not wash dirty linen in public and keep family secrets private.
Can’t blame them I suppose. And all families have their secrets.
I also have had the reputation of being somewhat eccentric. I did in fact behave badly in public on many occasions although that was decades ago. The real reason why I still have that reputation is that:
- I am an unconventional person in a conservative and traditional society.
- Society has a guilty conscience as regards me and does not want to give me a chance to create mischief for them.
All this is just by the way. I want to give you the context in which I will be making my main point. This point is summarized by Bertrand Russell in Sceptical Essays:
Shakespeare puts the ’lunatic, the lover and the poet together’ as being ‘of imagination all compact.’ The problem is to keep the lover and the poet without the lunatic.
The point I want to make is that it is not possible to do what Russell wanted us to do – keep the lover and poet without the lunatic. There is the common saying that you have to take the good with the bad. Alan Watts also mentioned in The Way of Zen:
If you want to get the plain truth,
Be not concerned with right or wrong.
The conflict between right and wrong
Is the sickness of the mind.
Alan Watts goes on to add that there is a universal illusion that what is pleasant or good may be wrested from what is painful or evil.
So how does all this apply in my case and why should society care?
The important point is that if you agree that I have (to whatever extent) the qualities of lover and the poet then you must accept and give me the license to behave like a lunatic at times. I am not saying that I have the right to break the law. I am also not saying that you should not feel bad if I behave in an eccentric way. But accept that you cannot have the good without the bad.
There is a lesson for the authorities here as well. Especially the police as they are supposed to keep order and provide protection. Take good care of your eccentrics. All your geniuses who can change society come from that class.
Here is a relevant quote:
‘All Progress Depends on the Unreasonable Man’: George Bernard Shaw’s Lessons on Change
There is the common desire amongst the elite in India that the country should make progress economically, that the poor and downtrodden should be uplifted and we should become a modern country with a scientific outlook. None of this will be possible without the unreasonable geniuses.
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Link to Sceptical Essays by Bertrand Russell
Link to The Way of Zen by Alan Watts