What do you believe in?

“I remember the first time I saw The Dark Knight. During the opening sequence, towards the end of the that perfectly executed bank robbery, right before we get to see the Joker’s beautiful face for the first time. The bank manager goes on a weird kind of rant, something on the lines of…’Criminals in this town used to believe in something. But look at you. What do you believe in?’. Since then I’ve always thought it to be a very profound question.”

“How the fuck can a question be profound! It’s the answer that is either profound or mundane. But a  question- it’s just an empty vessel which can filled with either. I think it has the ability to invoke profound answers. Just like it does in the film.”

“May be you’re correct. But nevertheless, I think it’s a very important question. Each one us, does believe in something- consciously or subconsciously, sometimes by a choice or sometimes by a simple choice to go with our social conditioning.”

“I get what you’re trying to say. Without a belief system things would’ve gone haywire. We probably would’ve eaten each other at the first hunger pang had it not been for the belief that doing so is wrong. Isn’t that how religion & consequently, all other belief systems came into being. To lay down a basic guideline for the better- sometimes for those doing the believing but often for the believed.”

“Umm…that’s one way to look at it. But then, without a belief what would even separate us from the animals. We’d just eat, sleep, shit & fuck!”

“And that’d be bad because…?”

“That’d be bad because that would single-handedly be the death of evolution & progress. The early man wouldn’t have created the fire & the wheel if he didn’t believe in ‘making life simpler’ as the purpose of his life.”

“I think that he or she- let’s not be sexist- would still have worked towards making his own life simpler because that’s an intrinsic human attribute- the desire for something better.”

“Ok, may be he would’ve. But do you think he would’ve bothered passing down that knowledge. Do you think the cave walls would’ve been painted in so much detail had he not believed in the concept of humanity, had he not bothered about ‘how he’d be remembered after dying’. For that matter, would any artist- a writer,  painter, or a sculptor or that snapchat celebrity bother themselves with the process of creating had they not believed in something- the power of story telling, the belief that somehow that story could affect others, or that sharing that is the purpose of their being.”

“I don’t think that’s the only possibility though. It’s vanity. Each one of us has a desire to be noticed & be liked, by ourselves, by those around us, by people who don’t know us yet, by people whom we have no intention of knowing. And that’s the primary reason why anyone creates. Granted a story might just ‘come’ to an author as a dream, a  thought, an epiphany, or an acid trip, but the desire to share it with others- that’s just pure vanity.”

“Or can we say, it’s a belief; that doing so, i.e. sharing that story would affect the way the way the world us perceives us. I am sorry,  but I forgot what was the point I wanted to make by all this”

“I believe you’ve had enough to drink for the night!”