Devil's Advocate

Slapping someone, using profanities, making choices, deleting that folder you loved so much, and the list would just go on. These are some of the acts we don't think through. Impulse rules our reason. Choice? Well we don't have any. To quote from Matrix itself- we've already made our choices, we're here to simply understand our choices. And when have we made our choices or rather how have we made a particular choice? Split second. Imagine this scene (and I'm sure this has happened with most of us who actually have conserved the gray cells to recollect it)- a competitive exam, say CAT is going on. You stumble upon a question to which you supposedly have derived the solution but still are in that ubiquitous dilemma as to which choice to mark. In that split second (some even term it as heat of the moment) you mark your answer. It turns out to be wrong. No amount of kicking yourself will redeem you of the sin you'd committed. Endless hours are spent contemplating the choice we made but to no avail. It's something we've just done.

Maybe this quote of Merovingian from Matrix will testify my stand on choices. He says- There is no choice. It's an illusion created by those with power to pacify those without power.

The decision to drop Fat Boy on Hiroshima, wars being fought, what stocks to buy/ sell, marrying, breaking up, this, that, everything rests on that split second which overpowers our emotions, logic, rationale. No matter how much we hate to confess, the truth is we all indulge in decision making which, to put colloquially, just happens (just the way shit happens!!!). But that moment has a bearing on our lives (on a micro level) and maybe millions (on a macro level).

Split second..... how small is it anyways?!!

PS: This post is a result of a conversation between me and Nidhi.