Technically
speaking, intellectualism is an ideology wherein the subscriber predominantly
relies on his/her intellect rather than physical capabilities for whatever
he/she does. Its practical interpretation is a way of life dominated by use of
intellect at every step the person takes. This makes a great difference in way
a person thinks, speaks and performs. Let us see how it matters in day-to-day
living of a person.
Supremacy
of Logic
Humans
have a highly developed faculty of thinking and logically deciding on problems
faced by them. Therefore, logic is the first and foremost asset of human life,
and making the best use of it is essential for being humane. It forms the core
of intellectualism for the logic being the application of intellect.
When
great scholars were developing humanity for use of intellect, enemies of
humanity brought in a vicious concept of 'faith' to human life, wherein a
person need not to think and logically decide on an issue but go by what
somebody else guides him/her to do. Purpose of developing faith in people has
been misguidance and exploitation of people by some cunning preachers of faith.
Since,
humans have inertia, they look for easier ways of leading life. Faith comes
handy to people saving them from complex process of thinking and logically
deciding. Hence, faith became more popular than logic as way of life. This
reduced number of intellectuals in humanity.
Application
of Intellect to Life
Wisdom
of a person guides him/her to success in achieving his/her goals without consideration
of what is right or wrong. But intellect of a person illuminates him/her with
knowledge of right and wrong, and forces him/her to be on the right path
irrespective of whether he/she loses or wins in games of life. Even in a loss,
such a person has the contentment of being on the right path, while a wise
person may find physical comforts of life but feels discontentment or even
repentance for what he/she might have done to win a race. This differentiation
in wisdom and intellect makes an intellectual person to have and comply by
moral values as basic principle of life and then applies wisdom to achieve
success.
Since
majority of persons want success, intellectuals are always in a minority in a
society, and make a distinction by being flag-bearers for being followed by
some others looking for standard principles of life.
Synergy
in Thoughts, Speech and Actions
The
first sign of a person being moral is that he/she does what he/she speaks, and
he/she speaks what he/she thinks. This makes his/her mind clear free from
confusion of ambiguities, saving him/her energy for serving greater purposes of human life.
Such
a person is always straight forward which goes against modern practices of
diplomacy wherein a person speaks sweetly even with bitterness in his/her mind
and actions. This trait further reduces number of subscribers of
intellectualism.
Individual
Freedom with Social Discipline
Since
our great ancestors decided to have human settlements at fixed places, we
became social animals. This imposes social discipline on each of us limiting
our freedom to individual level only. Another implication of this intellectual
trait is to respect rights of others through pursuing own rights, and also
fulfilling own responsibilities before expecting others being responsible
members of society.
This
provision of intellectualism was vehemently breached by enemies of humanity
through preaching religions and putting it into social arena of individuals for
guiding their social lives. Since religions have been many with mutually
contradictory preaching, social displays of religious performances put
followers of different religions at war with one another. The right course
should have been to put religious faith into individual arena of persons.
Duty
of Giving Back to Life
Human
life is a precious gift of Nature to us, for which we need to pay back to
Nature by producing and making our children better members of humanity. This
way only, we can ensure continuity of a happy human life on the planet. Apart
from this being our social responsibility, it is our our individual
responsibility too as a parent.
Working
for Livelihood
Everyone
of us needs food, clothing to cover our bodies, shelter to live in, and many
other comforts of human life. All these things need us to earn money through
working. Even with huge inherited wealth, a person should not lie idle or
loiter here and there just because he/she is sure of meeting all his/her needs
from the inheritance. Further, we are obliged to raise a family to continue
human life on the planet, this too needs us to work for economic support of the
family. Anybody not having a proper work for himself is not fulfilling his/her
basic humanly duty.
Creating
for Advancing Humanity
Modern
human life needs thousands of things as necessities, facilities, conveniences,
such as motor vehicles, computers, telephones, furniture, dress materials,
variety of foods, oils and cosmetics, drugs and medicines, etc for each of us.
Such things are available to us because somebody else created these. It becomes
our duty to give back to humanity as creators of something new. Nobody can
afford to remain just a user or consumer of such things like a parasite. such
creations are the basic things through which humanity has advanced as superset
of natural life.
Optimum
Use of Resources
Every
living-being survives and progresses by consuming resources from the Nature external
to him/herself. Hence higher availability of resources to every living-being
may mean survival of more units of life and their better qualities of life.
While others may not understand this, intellectuals understand this well, they
use minimum of resources to let these be available to others and manage
themselves optimally.
This
strategy includes minimization of wastes produced and thrown back to the Nature
by them, and may need recycling of wastes. For example, conversion of human
excreta into useful manure for growing fruit, vegetable and fiber plants in a
garden, and further making use of organic wastes from plants and kitchen into
more manure for the plants may make a family unit or a set of persons self-reliant
for meeting most of their medicines, foods and fiber requirements and producing
almost nothing to pollute the Nature. Such practices may ensure good health to
all through right selection of food plants for growing in the garden.
The
water drawn for underground is given back to the ground through rain-water
harvesting during rainy season wherein the rain water from the area is taken to
the lowest point and dropped into the ground through a boring. Same boring is
used to provide Earthing to the Electricity circuit of the home.
Performance
Efficiency
General
definition of efficiency of a system is the ratio of output to input of the
system which is always less than 1. Efficiency of human life is thus measured
in abstract terms through study of what a person gives out to the World
external to him/her and what it takes from it. Both the input and output may be
positive as well as negative. say, giving out foods for somebody is positive
but giving out pollutants to the World is negative output. Similarly, an input
of a food item is positive while absorbing some pollutants and neutralizing it
is a negative input.
With
intellectual living as depicted above, a person essentially intakes fresh
potable water, may be some food items, clothing, building material, etc from
outside, and outputs a huge quantity of food, firewood, timber and medicinal
items produced in the garden, and most importantly gives out nothing that is
negative. Further, he/she provides homes for a large number of birds, insects,
etc in the garden.
Another
important service an intellectual provides to humanity is developing and
exemplifying a rich tradition for others to follow. His/her children grown
through intellectual living prove to be more responsible citizens than others.
This makes the whole family a precious asset for society.
