There is usually a kernel of truth in the words Oscar Wilde puts in the mouth of his most outrageous characters -- they wouldn’t be funny if otherwise. One such gem that is worth pondering is: “The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.” Is it true that when we most need advice we are least willing to listen to it? Or is good advice always welcome?

Phantoms won’t always be around to show you your future or turn back time for you to relive your past like they did Uncle Scrooge in ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge didn't listen to his girlfriend, not even his boss of his first job. He virtually got a second chance at life only after the phantoms showed him what he would become if he kept ignoring the advice of his well-wishers – he would have none. In the story, however, he was able to set things right. But, for most of us, there will be neither phantoms nor second chances at untying the knots. There is plenty of advice coming one’s way, probably just meant to be passed on to brethren and offspring.

Advice is given to keep people on track. It has been passed on from one generation to the next with the motive of maintaining the order which has already been set in the society. It has also been a tradition – more a law of nature – that good advice, rather one that advocates a truth, is not taken but only given. If I ask you to listen to a particular song, you will, most likely, comply. If I ask you to stop hanging out with your boyfriend because I think he is eccentric, selfish and possessive, you and I, in all likelihood, will part ways.

One fine day, your boyfriend will hurt you. You try to leave him and live your life happily and normally again, but it is too late. That day you achieve enlightenment. You think that “Oh! God! Why hadn't I listened to her then?” You are frustrated and regretful but more experienced. Now, you begin the ritual of spurting out honey that turns into venom at the eardrum of the listener.  The same kind that stung you once. For instance, my sister brushed aside advice and severed relationships with her loved ones when she was told to follow her dreams and not study engineering. Her concept – I will get a job soon. And stick to her concept she did. She was right. She did land a job in four years. But, she couldn't cope with the stress. It asked of her everything she was not built to give. Enlightenment was achieved, realisation dawned. Now, it was her turn to spurt and I am her subject.

In this case, both boyfriend and a quick job are the same as the spider from the nursery rhyme ‘The Spider and the Fly’ or the junk food in the roadside stands. They are bad things that lure one to them. They appear wearing the false hides of ‘easy and comfortable’. Humans, who do, instinctively, incline towards the easy way out, are too effortlessly tempted. That is why the enlightened adults are necessarily around to advice and the confused youngsters to listen. The law of nature must be upheld, the gongs of tradition must beat in time.

Since time immemorial it has been customary to pass on knowledge verbally; many a time in the form of a story. Every story had a moral and morals were good advice. Those stories, as stories have always been, were set in the backdrop of the contemporary society. They told people what the world around them was like. Today, we have media that connect us to hills, deserts, cities and oceans of the world. But one thing hasn't changed – advice are given and then given again. People still need to show others what to look at before they leap. And those who are shown, most often don’t see. They don’t leap if they should and leap if they mustn't. After all, advice is free and freedom is sweet.

“A man who waits to believe in action before action is anything you like, but he is not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning the ball stopped to think about his views on the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.” -- Georges Clemenceau. Is it true that acting quickly and instinctively is the best response to a crisis? Or are there times when an urgent situation requires a more careful consideration and a slower response?

 She was packing her suitcase. It was a well planned packing that she was doing. Her dresses were neatly ironed and folded. There was no rummaging, no digging into a packed suitcase for a lost item – it wasn't one of those tedious rounds of packing that obfuscated you. Everything was perfect except, the time was 6.30 p.m. and the train to catch was at 7.00 p.m.  She was obfuscated – by herself.  Or at least, she had been. At 6.00 p.m. she was running late. But, just as always, she thought that everything would fall into place. So, at 6.30 p.m., she was humming a tune. Well the train station was only five miles away, but rush hour traffic could make the journey an hour long. At 6.00 p.m. she faced an emergency. Did she take time to think or was she following her instincts?

She was doing what she was accustomed to do; wait for the puzzle pieces to be blown into place the wind. She didn't know how to act; or rather, whether or not to act. In a way, instincts ruled her mind and instincts aren't always the right keys to the lock.

Your instincts may not always be as intelligent as you wish it to be. The Indian govt. recently found itself in a fix when mass protests broke out in the country over a brutal gang rape.  Their guts told them, “Stop the crowd!”  So, stop the crowd they did. That crowd complied, but a bigger and angrier one came back. This time it stuffed so many more problems in the govt.’s mouth. The media too began to pull a hair here, a leg there – anything it could get hold of.  The govt. was turned into a treacherous villain overnight.  A villain that had to be slain. Their ‘instincts’, now, backed out and ‘thought’ captured the spotlight. Then ‘thought’ didn't budge from there. They weren't being able to translate it into action. Too much thinking, at this hour, wasn't helping. They were seemingly failing to resolve a common crisis in a democracy.

It is when ‘instinct’ and ‘thought’ co-sign the contract that the business can flourish. Think, but think fast. Follow your instincts but not without thought. The wiring around the main switch in the house short-circuited.  It is dead of the night and all the appliances have blown-off. A fire has started and there is plenty of inflammable material in the immediate surroundings. What would you do? Seeing that it is pitch black and that it is a fire you must tackle, your instincts will tell you to dash for the bucket in the bathroom. Your instinct isn't aware that water and electricity have been the most extreme of enemies ever since their co-existence began. It can’t put two and two together. It is your thought that must warn you. Your thought, if it isn't asleep, will direct you to sand in the garden or a blanket in the closet. It shows you what is wiser.

But even to lead you to the bathroom, your instincts must be energetic. That, however, will not be the case unless you are proactive. A patient at the operating table is having a seizure.  Slow instincts can, in this case, be fatal. Inactive instincts coupled with ‘thought’ in a coma, is undoubtedly damaging. It can throw a person into a dilemma too dark and deep to come out of.  It is like waking up suddenly and finding yourself in the middle of a thicket with overgrown vegetation.

Just as an untidy handwriting daily will not, magically, result in exemplary calligraphy in the examination, will not be able to run from an approaching snake. Getting the right concoction of instinct and thought needs practice. Rome was not built in a day and a badly brewed potion didn't make the Halloween Town witch famous.

"What man calls civilization always results in deserts. Man is never on the square -- He uses up the fat and greenery of the earth. Each generation wastes a little more of the future with greed and lust for riches." -- Don Marquis. With our modern awareness of ecology are we likely to make sufficient progress in conservation, or are we still in danger of damaging the earth beyond repair?

"Each generation wastes a little more of the future..............." -- Don Marquis.
A time will come when the existing generation will have nothing to waste. Will machines take over the earth and annihilate the humans? No. Will the exhaustion of resources result in mutation of a virus that turns humans to zombies? No. Will the world return to stone age and humans separate into tribes fighting against new and savage beats? No. We imagine for the worst out of fear. We fear because we know we are inflicting too much pain on nature. Nature isn't hurting us in return. But she will, eventually, buckle down on her knees and crumble. This dread has crept into our minds and is building its nest at the back of our minds. Nobody, however, can imagine what the future will look like.

People can't imagine that which is unknown to them. People fear to venture into the realm of the unknown. People are afraid that of they go on the way they are, one day the world would change beyond recognition. Alter it will; and for the worse. People are making efforts to hold fast to the world of today. They want to keep the picture hanging on the wall. It is true that change can be brought in the lifestyle of the people if they try hard enough and the world can be made a better place with those changes. But will everybody try hard enough? Even if everyone can be awakened, how long will it take?

It took us so many years to just realise that we are ruining the world. It may take just so many years more to find out what the right thing to do is. The world will not wait that long. Everybody knows what the problem is but many are not ready to take even the first steps. Unless it becomes the will of all to change the world, things cannot take a better turn. This is not one man's fight. The fight cannot be won without the greedy and apathetic on the morals' side.

The greedy, selfish and apathetic need to change first. But, they are hardwired into hundreds of centuries of civilization. A recent excavation revealing the 4000 year old skeletal framework of a man with a rare congenital disease, the Klippel-Feil syndrome, where the bones weaken and the spinal vertebrae fuse together, show that care and empathy were intrinsic human character. The man contracted the disease as an infant and though dependent on others, through his adolescence into his twenties(by which time he was completely dependent).

The ability to be compassionate is a thing of the past. Whether its disappearance was before or after people developed their love for money can be disputed. Man's material desires and need to display their possessions, the hunger for status, the ever-widening gap between those who have too much and those who have too little, have all led to a dying moral system in the society. The lust for these very things is grooming a selfish man who has learnt only to take and not to give. He will use but not replenish.

In using those resources which cannot be replenished once depleted gives him more money, there he will invest. Replacing a depleted resource with another merely leads to the over-consumption of the other. For those few who are trying to make the world a better place, it is a long struggle -- maybe too long. The world is critical and our characters are not equipped with adequately efficient technology to help it.