In your popular book “5 questions of inquisitive apes” we read your audacious thoughts on several topics, apart from scientific research what is your source of inspiration?
Apart from research and reading, I would say travel.
Do you know what is the biggest issue facing human beings? To me it is the sense of ‘us’ verses ‘them’. This feeling has helped us survive and hence I won’t be surprised if it is in our ‘selfish genes’. But, it is also the cause of all our troubles, from Crusades to World Wars. Travel is the cure to this genetic disease that plagues our civilisation. The more you travel the more you befriend people and get used to the different cuisines and cultures. That is when the wall between ‘them’ and ‘us’ starts getting blurred. What better inspiration can there be?
Better questions give better answers, why you selected these 5 questions. As we cannot neglect that there are still many unanswered questions.
Questions are many. Unfortunately my knowledge is limited. So are the pages of my book. Hence I had to limit myself to five questions.Why these five? Not necessarily because they are ‘better questions’, but because these are questions that have bothered me and I have been trying to understand for a long time. These are questions that brings us face to face with our own prejudices and hopefully shows us a mirror. May be they will take you towards many more unanswered questions.
The questions like “How we came to be?” And “Is sex bad” are very disputable questions and have many answers, how you sought clarity for the answers?
As a geologist I am trained to look at multiple scenarios. So, even in real life whenever I face a tricky question I try to create multiple scenarios. In other words, try to look at it from different perspectives.
Dispute occurs when you are stuck in you own shoes and consider it the best, or more dangerously, the only pair of shoes. Clarity comes when you put yourself in another person’s shoe. The best part about this is that the size of the shoe does not matter.
So, when you think of questions like ‘Is sex bad’, you have to look at it from the perspective of those who consider sex as taboo and understand why. At the same time you have to look at tribes among which sex is not a taboo and understand why. Also, look back at the past and find out when it became a taboo, and again understand why. There is probably no single way to find clarity, but this works for me more often than not.
The trickiest part is to understand what your favoured perspective is, and then try hard to look at other perspectives with a neutral eye. This is the part I find most difficult.
Your first book “70,000 year history of Indian subcontinent” and the second book “5 questions of inquisitive apes” both have their roots in history, but are very important in today’s world. Can we expect a book about future or present?
The second book was more about the present incorporating some learnings from the past with a look towards the future. About the separate book on future or present… It is not in my mind at present, but you never know about the future.
Your writing style and topic selection reflects optimism. We are in a age where sadness, depression and negativity is impacting minds the same way positivity does. For every good question, answer, idea or change there are negative opinions ready, which are misguiding people. You told us “how to be happy”, what is your advice for choosing the right way, the thing which is good for us?
I do touch on that topic in my book. I don’t think there is one right way. As Sri Ramakrishna would say “Infinite are the paths and infinite the opinions”. ‘Negative’ opinions are also opinions. When we judge things as right or wrong, we put our own biased judgement into it. Great literatures and philosophies have come out of sadness and depression. Siddartha would not have been Buddha otherwise. ‘Negative’ emotions themselves could be a path towards happiness. Who am I to judge that it is not good for us?
In my book I talk about the CED Triangle. Different persons have different personalities based on where they fall in that triangle. So, what works for one, might not work for another. But, whatever one’s path may be, it is important to understand his or her own biases and limitations. We all carry our own bag of prejudice with us. Understand what’s inside your bag, and ensure that it is not so heavy that it weighs you down. You won’t be able to travel far with all that load. If it is too heavy you need to find your own way to unload yourself.
I’ve read several articles on your blog, very clear and bold about your thoughts. Whenever we try to answer any question, more questions are raised and they create a sense of doubt. What you do to over come them?
Doubt is good. There is no progress without doubt. The more you try to find answers the more you end up finding questions, which is the only way to be sure that you are making progress. Doubt is what makes us inquisitive apes. That is the reason I do not try to overcome doubts. In fact, I still have doubts about the answers to all the five questions in my book. Quoting from it, “The aim of this book is not to provide one single answer to all the questions, but generate more questions in the mind of the reader. If this book manages to increase the inquisitiveness of the readers, I will consider my attempt a success.” So, just keep asking questions, keep finding answers, and make sure that the doubt never cease to exist.
What was the most challenging thing, finding the questions or the answers?
That is a very good question and I don’t know if I have an answer. May be the questions find us as we keep seeking for the answers. However, if you are trying to find questions, I bet its going to be really difficult.
I am grateful for the author to provide me this opprtunity, Thank you
Reader from a star 