I’m not impeccable
I’m not perfect

I have my demons
I have my quirks

I have my fantasies
I have my fetishes

I’m not weird
I’m not absurd

I have my fears
I have my insecurities

I have my doubts
I have my disbeliefs

I’m not impeccable
I’m not perfect

But I’m me
The ‘as-is’ me

I don’t wanna lead
You shouldn’t follow me

Coz you should be YOU
And let me just BE!

Geography, Biology and Chemistry have all taught us that each location, species and / or substance/particle has its own properties. A hilly region in the Himalayas will have different soil quality while the hills in the Sahyadri or the Malnad will have different properties. The deserts of Sahara and Thar will behave differently. The tropical climate is different than that from the Arctic and the Antarctica. A monkey won’t do what a dog does and vice versa. Horse won’t do what an elephant does and vice versa. They won’t cross-breed either amongst different species. Chemical substances have their respective properties and will change behaviour when mixed with others and that too with different results when mixed in different proportions.

Our cultural history has taught us about ‘Ram-Rajya’. One of the highlights about that was the birth/introduction of caste system. While the intent and interpretations have changed over the generations, the basic idea was to have people with certain skill sets do certain jobs. Maybe History teaches us that the implementation was poor and that we need to learn.

Why then do we try and generalize everything? Why then do we want to standardize everything? Why then do we want to urbanize, digitize and / or mechanize everything in the name of development?

We’ve messed up our socio-economic systems by trying and imposing one currency as the global currency (official or not). We’re also messing up with the education system by accepting some standards as the best for all. We’re messing up with competition by giving very high regards to certain awards than the others. e.g., Why should Indian cinema vie so hard for the Academy Awards? Not just vying for awards, we set those as benchmarks. Story-telling is unique to every culture and should not try and ape one another.

Can Humans (Sapiens) do whatever they want? I guess we’ve sort of answered that question to a great extent? It’s time we paid attention to “Should we do all that we’ve tried and succeeded?” When and where do we draw the line and say ok – we can do that but we shouldn’t.

The time has come to bring in a new order. With lessons from the History, why not attempt something like Ram-Rajya 2.0? I’m using this name as a reference. It can be called anything.

The idea is to not make every city like any other city in the country or world. We should not try and convert every town and village into a tiered city. Progress by infrastructure and construction ALONE is only cosmetic We must progress at the grass-root level. Equip people with education and let THEM decide. What skills do they want to acquire and explore?

We should try with one state as a pilot. We could look at one of the not-so-developed state. We have quite a few.

We do what is appropriate for that land by the people who are “skilled” and “willed” to carry out that activity from anywhere in the country. We either eliminate currency dominance there and bring in something local or do away with currency altogether and figure out a new way of carrying out trade of goods / services and arts.

Now that we know that as ‘Sapiens’, anyone CAN do anything, let’s give the ‘willingness’ a chance. Every individual is free to choose what he/she wants to do in any location. depending on not just his/her skills but his/her will. Over a period of time, we can have some states specialising in certain activities and others in other.

Why do we have to have a ‘leader’ based democracy? Isn’t it time to upgrade our thought process? Why can’t we have a system that is truly for the people, of the people and by the people. There needs to be no elected representatives. There needs to be specific jobs with specific targets. Anyone with the skill and will should compete and earn that position. Not by mere elections. Like any corporate job, why can’t we have appraisal systems? Prove your mettle in smaller societies.

I don’t have all the answers or solutions. But I think more than answers, we just need to ask the right questions. Maybe collectively, we can come up with some interesting alternate answers.

The real challenge is NOT in Blending in.

Blending OUT of our original-selves is what hurts us the most.