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The 5 truths of happy people and country

In a troubling time, where culture is playing kingpin and zeal is going for the over-kill, it is a good time for a full reminder of what place each element has in the mix. There are five major truths that create stable, sensible people and country.

The sole goal is individual happiness 

Society must enable every individual toward this end

Government, a mirror of society, ensure this is in spirit and letter 

Nation must not replace Home

Consent on awareness is absolute

Before I unravel them, there's an all-important preface: Home. Home is the sacred temple. It is an individual phenomenon that every person has an unquestionable right to practice and honour. It is everything we are, from the language we speak to the food we eat to the religion we practice to the values we practice to our sensitivities. Collectively, it is the first lab of humanity, and different for everyone with a lot of partial and whole overlapping that occurs - in either very large groups or much smaller ones.    

I

Individual Happiness is the ultimate goal of all life. Life is at its best when everyone seeks their own individual happiness in all its forms-personal goals to family ones, while respecting and supporting everyone else's right and effort to do the same. When this is achieved, the world is balanced.  

P.S.:- Home freely spills into and defines it.  

II

Society is formed when people come together and it can pose challenges to achieving Individual Happiness. The impediment: Home differs for many groups of members, there isn't space for every variety and the non-majority get the boot leaving them voiceless, unheard and cut off within the crowd. Completely healthy society removes all challenges to realizing Individual Happiness. 

P.S.:- Society, with its majoritarian tendencies, holds power and sway, a lot of times even over Law itself.   

III

Government, a functional representation of society, can ensure access to Individual Happiness through the rule of Law. If political will is otherwise, it simply be a mirror of a majoritarian society and just reinforce majority another time over. 

P.S.:- The equation that ensures democracy though elections isn't close to near perfect; true democracy isn't a simple mathematical majority. Instead of 50.1 standing to lose voice over 49.9, rendering them unheard, we could simply dedicate the whole percentage of seats to a whole party and have people elect representatives to cover that percentage of seats in a second round of voting. It's not an immediately executable idea, but it's a start to the right direction of discussion. 

IV

If we're sticking to the original dream of everyone achieving Individual Happiness, then Nation has to be non-majoritarian. It has to be nonrestrictive to the individuals who aren't the majority and restricted too. 

P.S.:- Since we're talking about Home, we need to define family (citizens) first. One definition is anyone who is from India i.e. natives by birth or direct lineage. We sometimes like to troublesomely define this by saying that, being Indian, they must also embrace everything majoritarianly Indian directly defying the unquestionable right to practice and honour what is Home to one (given our diversity) and instead imposing what is Home to the majority other as the "right" version if we are 'Indian enough to be Indian'. Anyone sensible enough to do this is also sensible enough to deny their own sworn country's diversity by calling any such people "anti-national" and the likes. Nation can never be competition to Home, and Nation must oblige and include it. If Individuals make Nations, and Home makes Individuals, then Home(s) define Nation, with superior emphasis.

V

Consent is not something we're asked when we are brought into this world. We are signed for a lot of things that we reject once we become aware, including those about Nation and Loyalty. If Individual Happiness is where we're heading to, it shouldn't be blocked. We should be able to exercise that Consent and opt out of them, or (if we can't, thanks to Society) openly hold and air our views about them.  

P.S.:- Doing so doesn't make anyone disloyal or ungrateful. Individual Happiness is the ultimate goal, even if we don't consent to our own Home. Like Society, Government and Nation, Home must not hinder Individual Happiness. We must be free to make Individual Happiness Home unquestioned, while fighting, respecting and supporting all others to do it without barriers too. 

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