Humans are the only species to have evolved so gracefully that they have had the ability to use their brains at a creative level. Add to that, we were given the chance to do what we wanted to with one whole planet as we deemed fit. Think about it. We were given the chance to build a masterpiece. A masterpiece we could live in!

What did we do instead?
Let me reiterate the fact that I mentioned while opening this article before answering the question. Humans are the only species that had the resources to build their own kingdom. And what did we do instead?

We started making a series of stupid decisions.

In all probability, it started with that guy who said “Well, let’s capture other territories and rule over people.” Say it aloud. Now think about how absurd that sounds! It’s like you’re eating a pizza: a beautifully baked pizza loaded with the choicest of toppings, with herbs and spices that flirt with the perfect, gooey cheese, and so much of it that you can barely finish it yourself. Then you see another guy, enjoying almost the same pizza; maybe he traded the pepperoni for some barbecued chicken, whatever. You see this, throw your pizza away, and go snatch this guy’s pizza. And we all know what happens when you snatch somebody’s pizza. War ensues.

I’m sure like any warm blooded human you lost your senses to understand the metaphor as soon as I mentioned pizza. I don’t blame you. In fact I’m just going to take a little break and help you get back on track. Pizza, here, equals land or territories that were attacked. You’re welcome.

You’d think we’d stop at this one massive error in judgement, but no. Some of us still want a bite of that pizza that is out of bounds. And the other half of us who got bored of wars and bloodbaths found leisure somewhere else. For example, we decided to download Instagram and make the Kardashians famous. Then we ourselves took a shot at getting famous by using doggy-filters on Snapchat. Not to mention, it didn’t really work. We deface buses and roads because someone posts something on Twitter. What’s funny is, all that’s just about the virtual world.

In the real world, we have almost made Donald Trump the most powerful person on the planet. We let our celebrities drive cars on footpaths, and reward them not only with a free get-out-of-jail card, we give them hundreds of crores of rupees for telling us a stupid story about a rustic,brawny man who kills goons, falls in love with some girl (who 9 out of 10 times is Sonakshi Sinha), dances to a reckless lyric-music combination (with a disaster of a cameo by some wannabe rapper), and then kills the leader of those goons. Every damn year. We think that our environment like a bouncy air-castle on which we could just recklessly jump around while we ignore the fact that one poke sharp enough might render us all obsolete. We think climate change is a hoax, and kill dolphins while trying to take selfies with them.

Speaking of hoaxes, we built the concept of religion to help us feel safe. And as a back-up to religion, we build the concept of romantic love : something that we claimed would be strong enough when the strongest of our belief fails. Now I don’t know when you are reading this, but with absolute certainty, I can say that someone killed someone because of either love or religion right about now.

I hope you’re all convinced that humans are a stupid bunch of people. But there’s still this one unanswered question.

Why did I go on this long rant about humans and their follies, you ask? Why did I go out of my way to establish that making stupid, immature and reckless decisions that are almost always catastrophic is a distinctly human virtue?

Well, it’s because I want you to feel good about yourself. I want you to know that you made the most quintessentially Indian mistake you could’ve made: you fell prey the ‘engineering lele bohot scope hai’ prank that (I do not understand why) our elders have been playing on us. You had the brains, but you made a stupid move. And it’s okay. We’ve been there too. The good news is, you’ve chosen IITR, the perfect place to nullify this mistake of yours.

Or have you?