Soft Drinks - Do the Dew

Originally written in Jan 2002 for Infosys Bulletin Board

"What is good, Pheadrus,
And what is not;
Do you need someone to tell you that?"
- Robert M Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Several times, I have been faced with this dilemma - is what am I doing worth it? Now, this question can be talked about on a very generic scale, but here I just want to talk about self-indulgence.

So I ask myself - is it worth eating so many sweets just because I have got a sweet tooth, fully knowing that my grandfather had diabetes and I am susceptible to it? Is it worth eating so much of non-vegetarian food just because I find it tasty, at the cost of gaining weight and getting cholesterol inside my arteries? Is it worth having a Thumbs-up because I happen to like the taste, fully knowing that it is acidic and detrimental to my health?

Is it worth buying an Allen Solly shirt or a Levi's jeans just because I like the feel of that fabric and that style of stitching, fully knowing that the shirt is priced way beyond what it should be? Or for that matter, is it worth buying that Crocodile T-Shirt just because I think that it is hip and stylish and I consider looking hip and stylish important, fully knowing that I am not getting a value-for-money deal?

The question here is not whether my likings, my choices in life, my way of looking at things are correct or not. They are what they are. I am what I am. Its not that I am not changing. I am not what I was yesterday, neither what I will be tomorrow. But I am what I am. And given that, my choices in life will be governed by what I like today, at present.

Someone once very appropriately said - "All good things in life are either illegal, immoral, fattening"

Its not a simple equation. I can't get away saying that I do this because I like it. I mean, yes, I like having Thumbs-Up but I also like remaining healthy. And if I say I like having Thumbs-Up more than I like remaining healthy, it won't be correct. Put that way, I of course like staying healthy more than I like Thumbs-Up. Yet, I still have Thumbs-Up. Not in ignorance, but in full knowledge of the ill effects it has on my health. Why? Why do I do something like that? Why am I self detrimental?

I guess I have no answers to it. If anybody has, please tell me. Meanwhile, every time I am faced with such a dilemma - I will ask myself, "should I do it?" Some part within me will answer. It may be the logical, evaluative, thinking part of me which may prevail, or it may just be my laziness, or something else. But I know I will end up doing what I want to do at that point of time, irrespective of all this logic.

An interesting question, of course, is whether what I want will change just because I have thought and written this piece?