Sartre and Sweets

Jean-Paul Sartre, one of the biggest names in existentialism talks about people in the modern age leading Inauthentic Lives. Now, to explain what that means, would take a book's worth of writing, however what he means to say is that, they don't really live their lives as themselves, instead they exist as just entities, as minions of this all-encompassing juggernaut, that modern life has become. This is a sentiment I too have expressed in some of my earlier blog-posts,

So, When I was working in my previous company at Bangalore as a 'Generic software programmer', people would generally send out a mail saying 'please come to desk no. so and so, because so and so has returned from the us\got married\birthday\pet squirrel died etc and therefore there are chocolates ' and there would be a mad rush for the goodies, where people would shove\hit\slide their way to grab as many of the treats as they could, in the melee people forgot friends, and everyone was an enemy. These were well to do people, behaving like they just landed in a boat from Somalia. And, as the icing on the cake, they would shake hands with the man\woman who paid for the chocolates, congratulate him\her with a fake smile, while secretly feeling quite jealous and hoping that they were in that persons place, Then they would realize that at least they got a fucking snickers treat out of the other guy's good fortune. Maybe they felt that they had successfully hacked away at his success, I don't know. This fake smile would then be reciprocated by the man\woman in question, who would probably be thinking 'who the hell is this guy\girl ? I never even knew they existed, who cares, all it cost me is a few cents, and I feel like I own him'

And, on the other hand is my new workplace, here in Hyderabad.
So, today I was teaching some third standard kids how to convert Kiloliters to milliliters, when this kid probably from either first or second standard, classes which I do not teach, comes up to me and gives me a candy, you know the mango flavored one's. It was her birthday it seems. The happiness in her face was very sincere, she wanted to give everyone a chocolate on her birthday, it didn't matter to her that her parents are poor, she didn't seem bothered That is who she is and she had no regrets. I felt ashamed taking the chocolate from her, I was probably getting a higher allowance during my engineering college days than what her parents might be earning right now. I felt ashamed that she could be so happy giving something to someone, while the only time we feel happy is when we get something.
And they say that adults are more sensible than children. Ha!
And are Human Beings basically good at heart ? Is that a stupid question or what ?

Here is a greeting card the kids presented to me, I feel really good, putting this up on my blog, they thought my name was Vijay all along, hence the vijay Vijeth. and inside you can see their initials. Beat that. Aha!

P.S this is the first time I have put my name up here on the blog. Don't really know why.