There are days when I focus on the things that matter most, believing that action is more important than fruit of action. And then there are days when I am haunted by the unfairness and pointlessness of a world where action and fruit of action rarely coincide. The question of the meaning of action becomes paramount. What really stops us from giving up, what really motivates us to go on when nothing really makes sense and there seems to be no design whatsoever? If things are as random as they are, why not let randomness just take over…? I mean, you might still suffer at the hands of fate—by fate I mean randomness—but at least you don’t have to worry about not deserving it. Cutting your nose to spite your heart perhaps, but you won’t be bothered by questions of how action does not coincide with fruit. You would be equally undeserving or deserving and you would have no reason to be baffled and bemused by what keeps going down in the world…

Yes, it is one of those days where I am finding it hard to keep my bafflement and befuddlement at bay. I find it hard to find motivation in the idea of action for its own sake, and for its own enjoyment. Internal goods, as they call it in the academic world. I guess that is something. That one finds enjoyment in the internal goods, goods that no one can really take away from you or curtail access to. Maybe there is something in that. Maybe I should make peace with that. Even if my action never meets with commensurate reciprocation, it will still not be for nothing. I would have already earned something that not everyone can earn and certainly one cannot earn without action. Perhaps there is some innate justice in the scheme of things though this scheme doesn’t respond to the logic of the world we have today. Perhaps I need to appreciate this deeper logic instead of getting seduced by the ways of the world—as they would say in India philosophy, all is nothing but “māyā” (illusion) and “mithyā” (deception). But, how do you hold this position and still stand for justice in the world?