Who Defines Us? Memory, Perception, and Moral Judgment

 Mangoes — the sour-sweet ones — are her favorite; mine is guava. I am eating one while writing this. I had a lovely conversation with her. She has gone to sleep, and I am here attempting to make the conversation last a little longer. (Following are the snippets from the conversation we had )

I read a story where a lady lost her memories and was confronted with a completely unfamiliar world, with a man claiming to be her husband standing in front of her. Her mind was filled with questions about her identity, none of which were answered. So she started searching for answers about herself. People hated her. Some said she cheated on her husband; others said she was unreasonable, haughty, and an obnoxious woman. They looked at her with hatred. A lady claiming to be her best friend came with a disgusting plan to torment her husband through her. She felt disgusted with herself and was overwhelmed by this new reality. She couldn’t accept herself and attempted suicide. After regaining consciousness, she again confronted her husband with all her questions. Her husband replied that he hadn’t answered her before because whatever he said would only be his perspective of her. He would speak about what he thought of her, not about who she truly was. Only she could know herself. There was no other way of discovering her identity; she couldn’t simply believe others’ words.

I don’t remember the whole story, and it doesn’t matter because only this part is relevant. I will connect this story with the story of a book I read years ago, The Witch of Portobello written by Paulo Coelho. This book begins with the death of Athena, after which a journalist starts interviewing all the people who knew her. She appears differently in everyone’s story. For some, she was a witch; for others, a goddess; for some, a madwoman; for others, a woman who prioritized herself above everything. But no one could deny that she lived her life fully — experiencing everything she desired, mastering arts with complete devotion — an extraordinary woman. Who truly knows a person besides the person herself? Who can define her? Who can judge her as right or wrong? The answer is no one. People often judge because they find it hard to think deeply. And besides, what even is “wrong”? Is it merely the absence of “right”? Can we really judge a person full of colors and emotions using a rigid black-and-white standard?

And here comes the third thread of my thoughts, connecting the other two: Raskolnikov, the protagonist of Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, considers an old pawnbroker a cruel woman who exploits poor people. He believes she does not deserve the wealth she possesses and decides to kill her so he can distribute it to the poor. He thinks he is a superior being and that for such a “meritorious” act, a crime is justified. Raskolnikov compares himself to Napoleon Bonaparte. For a great cause, is a little bloodshed justified? After all, people often read history from the predator’s — or rather, the victor’s — perspective. And why would a victor concern himself with the lives of his prey?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Universe and it's conspiracies

 Yesterday while scrolling through a YouTube short's comment section, I came across a comment that says how he/she believes that the universe conspires whenever someone tries to solve it's mysteries . The commenter shares his personal experience on how he dived deeper, read quite a number of books and intended to gather all of the information available on universe but right at that moment when he was half way in the rabbit hole he got involved in worldly affairs and got distracted from this topic.                                       And this is not the first time when this thing came in front of me, there were earlier instances , like this one time when my father, also a philosophy enthusiast, told me the same thing , how he got into trouble and got involved in other life matters right when he believes he was on certain stage of supreme knowledge.          ...
Read more

My first introduction to death!

 I must have been around six or seven years old at that time. First, let me tell you about my place, for the sake of better understanding . My house was on the side of a busy road, so I had particularly grown up in a locked house. The good thing is that the main door was a grill door, so I could see outside. As you have already guessed, my favorite pastime was to sit on my small blue chair in front of the main door. I remember wondering where the vehicles disappear when they vanish from my line of sight. It was a small village at the confluence of three rivers. One day, while sitting on the blue chair at my usual place, I saw a group of people chanting something and carrying a sleeping person covered with marigold flowers and an orange drape, on their shoulders. I must have asked some elder about what was happening. He joked that they were taking him to the river to throw him in, as he was dead now. He went as far as saying that they would throw me in the river too when I died. And...
Read more