Denial and Sacrifice

Often in life, we face situations when circumstances play villain in denying us some things which we would so much love to have. But, there are other instances in life when we show great will power to keep us away from something which we otherwise love, for something else more important and more lasting. That act of sacrificing fills you with a sense of gratification and satisfaction for your control on your mind and senses. But, then very rarely a combination of these two occurs - when we go a long way to settle our minds to sacrifice somethings, but then the villain circumstances deny us that sacrifice too. This phase of "denial of sacrifice" is the most painful, because you are stripped of the satisfying feeling of sacrifice, and strangely even the things sacrificed earlier by you don't taste that sweet.

PS: A vague representation of some recent incidents through abstract ideas. A cryptic post which only some close people can decode.

Facebook - Connecting people, Killing action?

In the current times, it would be difficult to find a person who has internet access but doesn't have a Facebook (FB henceforth in this blog) profile. Lately, FB became the third most populated 'place' in the world after China and India with over 400 million users. [1] But, as I see FB (and many do agree) that it's just a waste of time. Apart from the possibility of connecting with long-lost friends with no possible recovery of contact otherwise, FB just features shitty apps (I too was addicted to Farmville some time back), fraud quizzes (though some people feel happy that FB knows them so well) and who-likes-what, and who-is-friends-with-who, etc etc! So, it gives some losers enough reason to remain glued to their screens 24-7 (been there, done that).

But, does it end here? Is it just a wastage of time? Didn't I ever participate in a discussion as a series of comments on a status update, or share my inner thoughts through my status updates? Though FB gives power to broadcast your thoughts, but generally it's more of a virtual identity which people create so as to gather maximum number of 'likes' or 'comments'. It is not at all uncommon to find people check their FB profiles moments after they connect to internet, and update their status to reflect "What's on your mind?". After all, when was it so easy to express yourself! Too easy to be a cause of inaction in 'real' life? Yes, I'm talking of posts which though invoke opinions when thought about, but the result of the thought process is nothing more than a series of comments. Because it is so much easier to write a few lines on your status update and initiate a chain of comments, it kills the urge to act when and where it really matters. It's not just about cases like Ayodhya verdict or CWG, which aam junta like us have no control over. But, this is relevant to our own local problems (local to IITD), which nobody from outside is going to come and solve for us. Problems as basic as lack of drinking water or poor mess food in hostels. When we all know that raising these issues on Facebook won't make a difference, but troubling the concerned authorities would, yet it feels satisfying to have registered our discontent on some public forum. Such instinct to take the easier way out has extinguished some sparks which had the potential to grow into a large fire if fanned the right way. May be, it is the path and not the destination itself which guides our decisions after all.