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I just read an article that says posits as an argument against AI: The artist's ego is too important in the work of creation and needs to guarded.

But I have a fundamental problem with this view point -- an artist, according to me, is the most egoless being that a human can ever be. 

An artist understands the basic humanness in all of us, they are everyone and everyone is in them when they create. They are the world. They can create only when they succeed in the complete dissolution of the ego. 

It is the egoism of creation that has given birth to this monstrosity called AI.

This is not a clash of philosophies -- East vs West (and all other nonsensical labels). The best of artists from the East and the West have always been the most universal of their likes. 

Fascinating stuff, being so unfree and feeling the freest at the same time.

Dubious humankind.

You have managed to pull off a sleight of hand so devious that even devil stands amazed at your handiwork!

The pupil has far outrun the teacher. 

Help me throw off this unbearable oppression of fake freedoms.

I reject,

You too reject please

Help out!

The importance of hate

I woke up in a world smothered by love. Oozing from its very pores. At first I did not understand what this gooey slimy thing was that threatened to choke me and slather my being with formlessness, but after a few hours of being in it, I realised that it was this thing they call love. 

Slime or not, it was late as usual, and I had to get to office. 

My name is Kas and I work as a quality check assistant at Tulip Machines Inc, a company that can check the quality of whatever it is that the client wants quality checked for, located approximately 30 km away from my home in the suburbs of this city called Bengaluru. 

Today there is a ring of chants in the air when I step out. I am revolted by the chants per se, as they remind me of my childhood that was oppressive at best and downright perverted at worst. I have been told that today is the day when good won over evil and love won over hate. No wonder I woke up with the feeling of love's icky fingers all over me. 

To get to Tulip, I must travel for at least and hour by auto, metro and again an auto as my home and office are situated conveniently far away for me to be able to contribute to the booming commute economy to the best of my capabilities. 

At first I thought I would like to not be present in the now, and maybe be in a time where I could teleport myself to areas that I need to be at, but then I realised that would just take away the time I have for myself during the commuting process. So I decided to place myself in the now. 

It is a strange workplace in that sense as our team consists of highly mismatched individuals stuck together trying to churn out new standards of quality.

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Likith was disturbed by the conversation he had to have with Kas the previous evening. He is not a man for too much conversing and especially not about things that actually matter. The workings of the gut he can hold sermons on for hours as he had was of late particularly concerned with this topic, but matters of faith and so on are better left alone as far as he is concerned. Before his gut phase, he was into strokes. On the wrong side of forty, mortality had become like a cloak he was always saddled with and he tried to take it off by thinking all the time about various parts of the human anatomy. 

It started with Kas' grimace on seeing the vermilion mark on his forehead. The cocky bitch. Yes it started with her self-righteous expression. 

"There is a scientific explanation to this celebration, before you start wondering why we fools have to follow all rituals, madame know-it-all," he slid in sideways. 

"I wonder if you have ever had a crisis of faith?" she asked. 

Now, what on earth kind of a question was that! He may have had it or he may not have -- he surely wasn't going to share it with a woman, who refused to even have a bath on a daily basis. 

"Faith takes shape after a series of crises at various stages of one's life," he offered. 

"And once it takes shape, does it get calcified?" another question. 

"It is all very easy for you to say."

That line usually ends all conversations. It is an assumption and an assertion at the same time. 

He was not going to indulge in any more talk with that woman today as the matter of faith was particularly touchy for him. 

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Good morning

Now Wikipedia pages about famous Indians from the 1960s read like some other world than from the India today. 

The course we took from our independence till today culminates in handing over the reigns to the most corrupt, spiteful and ugly people that we have seen so far. Sadly, this was the only logical ending to a story etched in mediocrity and complacence, and every other trait stemming from deep-rooted casteism and parochialism. 

We now swim around in this muck. Everywhere we look, are liars. I kid you not, everyone is lying. If you can see this, it is enough to drive you mad. The trick is to understand, without letting it drive you mad. And the most important part is to refuse to be part of this tribe.

Whatever it takes. 

Love.

Simone Weil

There is nothing I want as much as I want to live on my own. 

Make my own plans, make my own decisions and live my own little unimportant piddly little life.

I want to be able to think about Simone Weil.

Just to think, 

I love life more than anything else in the world,

I mean obviously, is there anything else really to it?

Prophets

Praise be to prophets 

who told us that this day was to come

When we are struck silent by what is going on,

the prophets speak

for us

Were the prophets talking about the time gone by?

Or about what was to come?

Or about time eternal...

I do not know, but what they saw

Is unfolding in front of our eyes today

And we are struck silent,

But they speak 

for us

Praise be. 

Eat

Some days are so empty, that you want to eat all the books around you,

chew each page slowly

bite into the cover and chew it slowly too

just eat them all to fill this insatiable hollow 

Morning ritual

I woke up pretty early for my standards today. It was not a quiet morning at all. Too much noise everywhere, I'd say. Made by people who mean business. Busybodies. Everybodies.

Cleaning this or that. Mending this and that.  

Writing, studying, speaking. 

And even making art. 

When you watch the world go by as you are supine, your thoughts tend to take this route. The only way out of this whirlpool that threatens to destroy everything that mankind ever was or will be, is to sit up and throw back the curtains. I say this from experience and this is probably one of the many unsolicited pieces of advice that you will get from me, if you care to stay on. 

As for me, I am fine with this thought process as long as I can lie around for a few more minutes. Just a few...

This time when my eyes open it is noon. Quite a ripe and ready time of the day to jump out of bed, I'd say. Sheepish, but thirsting for life again. 

  

A world without compassion is like a gas chamber. India, unfortunately, has become a huge gas chamber. There was no way it would not have come to this. We are a society based on such deep divisions. And all these years, we really did not care. 

At this moment, we are all indulging in a shouting match and some of us have found a focus to pin the blame on. Our government. The government of the time is a symptom of the disease we have had. It is not the disease.