The Present which is the Past..........

 

A Year That Begins with Headaches, Heresies, and a Stubborn Hope

This year does not begin with fireworks.
It begins with a headache—specifically, Latin.
Declensions, conjugations, dead verbs refusing resurrection. Latin does not ask whether you are interested; it simply assumes discipline. It is the perfect metaphor for this year: submit or suffer. I choose both.

This is the year I want to make a new start—not the Instagram kind, not the motivational-poster lie, but the uncomfortable kind. A year of discipline and focus, where hard work overtakes everything else. Not because I am certain, but because uncertainty has failed to stop me. I am ready to do whatever it takes to follow my vocation—to become the one I am called to be. I guess everyone is expected to do the same, but very few actually mean it.

There is a strange, burning desire in me to do something no one has done yet. And yet, paradoxically, there is also a desire to be normal, to not always go out, to not always be seen, to exist quietly with myself, without attention, without applause. A strange contradiction: the desire to break history and the desire to disappear peacefully. Perhaps this is the real human condition.

This is a time to shape myself—which necessarily means a time to break myself.

Indian Epistemology: How We Claim to Know, and How We Lie About It

Indian epistemology never pretended that knowledge is neutral. It always asked: Who knows? For whom? At what cost?
And yet, today, we quote philosophy like decoration pieces—polished, lifeless, harmless.

Cārvāka laughs at us from the margins.
“Why worry about the unseen,” it says, “when suffering is right here?”
Eat, drink, question, doubt. And we pretend Cārvāka is crude, because it exposes our hypocrisy. We love transcendence only when it excuses injustice.

Jainism, on the other hand, whispers something far more uncomfortable: you are never fully right.
Anekāntavāda is not tolerance—it is epistemic humility. It demands discipline of thought, restraint of speech, responsibility of action. It refuses absolutism. Which is exactly why it is ignored in public discourse.

Indian philosophy did not lack depth; we lacked courage to live it.

Human Communication: Where Philosophy Goes to Die or Be Resurrected

The philosophy of human communication teaches one brutal truth: meaning is fragile.
We speak, but we are rarely heard.
We listen, but mostly to reply.

All traditions knew this. Silence mattered. Context mattered. Ethics mattered. Today, communication is loud, fast, performative—and empty. We talk endlessly about values while practicing efficiency. We talk about truth while optimizing lies.

This is where Kierkegaard walks in, lonely and misunderstood, reminding us that truth is not a system—it is a way of existing. Faith is not comfort; it is anxiety. Choice is not freedom; it is responsibility. To exist authentically is to stand alone, trembling, without guarantees.

No wonder we avoid him. Kierkegaard does not sell solutions; he exposes cowardice.

Periyar, Ambedkar, Narayana Guru, Iyothee Das: Philosophy with a Spine

Indian philosophy did not end in texts. It walked into the streets through rebels.

Periyar shattered idols—not because he hated God, but because he hated humiliation.
Ambedkar turned suffering into constitutional morality, refusing spiritual consolation without social justice.
Narayana Guru whispered a revolution: One Caste, One Religion, One God for humankind—and lived it without shouting.
Iyothee Das rewrote history itself, refusing to let the oppressed be defined by their oppressors.

These were not armchair philosophers. They paid the price of thinking. They remind me that philosophy without transformation is entertainment.

Mind, Brain, and the Illusion of Neutrality

Functionalism tells us the mind is what the mind does.
Identity theory tells us the mind is the brain.

Both pretend neutrality. Both forget suffering.

What is the function of pain?
What is the identity of love?
Where do you locate grace—in neurons or narratives?

Philosophy of mind becomes meaningless if it forgets the lived body, the social wound, the historical burden. Consciousness is not just computation; it is memory, caste, trauma, desire, prayer.

Grace, Prayer, and the Bubble That Carries Me

I know people are praying for me—even when I do not talk to them. They hold me in a bubble and carry me forward. The grace I desire is not success, not recognition, but connectedness.

Without this, philosophy means nothing.
Without change, thought is noise.

I know I am not innocent. I also pretend not to know where the world is heading. But the truth is: we all know. Each one of us knows. We just act as if we do not.

A Purposeful Disaster and the Cost of Delay

We are heading toward a purposeful disaster—not accidental, not ignorant, but chosen. Each of us will pay the price for not doing what was supposed to be done when it was supposed to be done.

Selfishness will cost us.
And when it does, we will suddenly realize that love was the only opium humanity ever had—not religion, not ideology, not power.

Love was the path humanity was meant to take to reach God.
And we failed.
And failure, too, has consequences.

A Verdict on This Blog—and on Me

So what is this blog?
A confession? A rebellion? A philosophical diary disguised as sarcasm?

I neither fully assert it nor fully reject it.

Because everything written here is true—and insufficient.

Indian epistemology teaches knowing without living is violence.
Kierkegaard teaches believing without choosing is despair.
Periyar and Ambedkar teach thinking without action is betrayal.

This year of discipline—will it change me, or just decorate my self-image?
Will hard work transform me, or merely exhaust me?
Will love remain a concept, or become a risk?

If the world knows where it is heading and still refuses to act—
what does that make us?
Observers? Cowards? Participants?

And the final, unbearable question:
If philosophy cannot save us from ourselves, what exactly are we saving philosophy for?

This year will answer that.
Or it will expose me completely.