Three Compromises I make every Day

I view myself as a principled person. There are a few issues I feel strongly about and I try in my own way to live in accordance with them. Some principles such as “Never tell a lie” I stick to scrupulously. In many years, I can recall only a handful of times when I’ve told a lie and in most of those cases I’ve gone back and corrected it.

Unfortunately, there are some principles which I break – sometimes regularly. Either by violating the spirit if not the substance, or because of my all too human weaknesses. Some principles I maintain only under certain circumstances. Here are three principles which I would like to live by in both spirit and in substance, but fall short of regularly.

Driving motorized vehicles

I don’t drive either a bike or a car. Apart from never liking cars in the first place, I feel they contribute way too much to pollution, take up entirely too much space on the road per person and make living in cities quite a bitch. But sadly, though I personally don’t drive, I’ve never shirked from hitching a ride. Anupa drives me around all the time and I’ve never once refused. True – many times I prefer to walk instead of taking the car a short distance, but this doesn’t really count towards absolving me of guilt.

What can I say? If I determined never to use a car or a bike again, my life will become pretty inconvenient. One way for me to get around this is to by an electric vehicle. I’ve had my eye on the Reva for a while and if I ever do buy a car, it’ll be an electric one.

Tipping Waiters in the US

I despise the kind of “mandatory” tipping system in the US. I feel waiters have no business demanding a tip even for poor service. When we arrived in the US, my wife and I stuck to this principle. We didn’t tip. Or at least we didn’t tip anywhere near the “minimum” 15% in restaurants. And we had some bad experiences. Every time we used to eat out, we used to worry about the tip right from the beginning – what would the waiter say? Would they be rude to us etc. etc. It used to spoil the entire experience and negate the purpose of eating out in the first place!

This time around however, we decided to just cave in. The flip side of not tipping was simply too much hassle. Now the only place where we don’t tip is in buffets where there’s no waiter service anyway, and they can’t do anything about it when we don’t leave anything. They don’t serve us our food so they can’t spit in it!

Eating meat in the US

Some time ago I watched a documentary about how animals are mistreated when we kill them in mass factories for meat. It affected me profoundly and I made a determination never to eat meat again. I was in the US at the time and anyone who’s lived in the US knows what that means. The veg food here is simply horrible. There’s no variety and everyone gives you a strange look when you tell them you don’t eat meat. Even the salads have meat in them, and a “Cheeseburger” isn’t vegetarian despite the name!

I manfully stuck it out without eating meat in the US for around three months till I couldn’t stand it anymore. I went sick at the sight of the veg food I was forced to eat everyday. At around this time we went back to India and then of course everything turned out ok. India is a vegetarian’s delight and I hardly even missed eating meat. Dosas, Appams, Andhra meals, Lemon rice, Chaat, Dal fry and Aloo Paratha kept me busy and happy :)

When when we returned to the US again, I couldn’t bear the thought of suffering once more for an indeterminate amount of time. So I swallowed (pun intended) my pride and ethics and decided not to skimp on the meat. It’s one of my biggest regrets that I eat meat here. All I can say is that the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak :(

And those are the three biggest compromises I make in my every day life. I don’t like to make them, but I do nonetheless…

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32 thoughts on “Three Compromises I make every Day”

  1. First thing I would like to say is that I’m impressed by your attention to details and wanting to live a principled life. :)

    And when reading such intensely personal posts like this, it is very tempting to see how I compare with you!

    There might be hardly any rule that I have for myself. And if there are any, I have broken them several times.

    I think there is only one rule that I follow most scrupulously, and which I might have never broken – and that is: to never try derive pleasure out of someone’s pain without adequate provocation. An associated corollary is to not do things knowingly that would hurt others.

    And ‘provocation’ above has to be really significant for me to act like that. That is a sort of personality flaw, which allows people to take me for granted, but let me not get into that. So, as would be apparent, the above two principles are quite generalized and thus they require me to ‘process lot of data and thus I have to keep on thinking most of the times’. As a single example, ‘telling the truth’ itself is not such a simple thing. I believe, truth is not the end, but it is a means to a more peaceful co-existence of the society. I sometimes wonder, how telling truth came to be recognized as a virtue. And I think that happened because on most occasions, the motivation to lie would be such that it would harm others. So, it became a maxim of sorts that ‘telling a lie = bad’. But, I see so many occasions around myself that telling a lie does not harm at all! Or sometimes even does more ‘good’ (in the sense, overall ‘happiness’ it would generate would be more than the ‘sadness’ it generates). In such cases I have no qualms lying. I can lie very easily in my real life, though it’s a different matter I hardly lie, because I don’t need to. But there are a few innocent lies that I keep on speaking. E.g., I absolutely avoid letting people know that I’m an atheist. Plus being a doctor, I’m many times in situations where people praise God for getting alright or say a loud wish that God will do what is best for them. From my perspective, these are the kind of conclusions I ought to intervene in, and say, “C’mon, stop deluding yourself, there is no God!” But I never say that, and I find that akin to not speaking the truth, but nor do I feel too guilty of doing that, because I would not be ‘harming’ the patient.

    It is possible that my judgement-calls on when to speak truth and when not to would prove wrong. But as you could see, what guides me is the principle of non-harm, rather than that of speaking the truth.

    And I am not even able to follow the principle of non-harm, because I believe (as I had tried to explain in one of my comments on your post, which I am not able to find) that even some of the simple things that I do, e.g., watching movie in a multiplex, makes it more difficult for a poor person to get his meal. But then, I do feel uncomfortable about it sometimes, the fact is my ‘id’ overrules this kind of inconvenient pricking by conscience. :) Bad!

    There is only one principle I follow with some rigor – that of not dirtying the public places. In India there are many places where it is difficult to find dust bins. So, on occasions I have even carried wrappers in my pocket to my room to throw them! But, I tend to a be a bit relaxed if it would be a small piece of paper (something biodegradable), like a ticket, though I would avoid throwing that too. So, basically I would absolutely avoid throwing on road anything that would be non-biodegradable.

    One thing I wanted to know is: do electric vehicles really reduce overall carbon dioxide emissions? I’m asking because even the electricity they use is produced is usually produced from fossil fuels, right? And then, if one calculates the transmission costs, etc. has it been found that per unit distance covered by these vehicles the carbon dioxide emissions and the amount of fossil fuel consumed are actually less?

    Reply

    • In reply to Ketan

      Nice analysis Ketan :)

      I have several reasons to tell the truth. For one, I feel telling a lie to someone is showing them disrespect. Even if telling a lie prevents them from feeling bad, I don’t think I have the right to take a decision on their behalf about what to feel or not to feel.

      More importantly, I’m a very poor liar! Also, it’s quite stressful since one has to remember all the lies one told and possibly even tell more to cover it up. And then remember those as well! Too stressful for a lazy person like me. Finally, it doesn’t mean I can’t obfuscate the issue and divert the topic if I don’t want to say something :) Though my wife has recognized these tactics of mine and can get the truth out of me if she wishes.

      Electric vehicles do indeed pollute since the electricity is generated from fossil fuels. But there are two mitigating factors:

      1. Since all the power is generated in a huge centralized plant instead of millions of little combustion engines, the efficiency skyrockets because we have a specialized system whose sole job is to convert coal/gas into power.

      2. Since the power generation process is abstracted from the car, any improvement in power generation has to take place at just one location instead of every single car needing to replace its system. So if a power plant suddenly switches to solar, it has to happen at just one place instead of in millions of vehicles.

      Also suppose a coal plant implements carbon capture technology, it can do so and the cars themselves will have nothing to do with it. The efficiency gains will be achieved at a centralized location and propagate far more easily.

      Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        You are a very poor liar, and an actual liar to boot as you troll around your own tipping blog pretending to be hundreds of people you are not. Man made global warming is a lie and that’s why you’re a cry baby bleeding heart liberal socialist, who whines about not contributing to a collective custom of tipping, which also makes you a filthy fucking hypocrite like all collectivists. The only pollution present on this planet is people like you.

        Reply

  2. Bhagwad,

    Yes, you’re right. Lying to a person is indeed akin to insulting their right to know the truth. I forgot to mention that I am very, very uncomfortable lying to those I hold dear. And ironically despite the fact that I debate so much on issues about which people get passionate, I absolutely avoid lying online. Partly, it is because of the same reason as you stated above that I would have to remember a lot of lies and that would get stressful, but the other one is a more emotional reason. Online, most of the interactions I have are by ‘choice’ (unlike say, at the workplace or social interactions). And thus in certain sense I hold them as ‘sacrosanct’. So, if I were to start lying even in those interactions that are not forced upon me, the entire purpose of online interactions (of being myself) would be defeated, if you get what I mean.

    Also, withholding a piece of information that in my judgement would be important to others is dishonesty according to me. I avoid doing that. And I have faced many problems in life because of that. Perhaps, I am ‘learning’ (to be more dishonest). :)

    I forgot to add that I have this strange fear of letting people know in my real life that I am an atheist. I fear that judgements about me would get clouded by this knowledge and others will stop taking everything I say seriously. But strangely and of course pleasantly so, a few people who I have told about this have taken it very sportingly. There would be occasional debates, but I tend to curtail them (unlike online). So, I am actually impressed by the tolerance of those around me, or perhaps, I had been too careful in choosing those who I told about my atheism. :)

    In my above comment, I had meant transmission “losses” (in the grid) and not transmission “costs”. I don’t know if that would make any difference to your overall analysis, but just wanted to let you know.

    Thanks!

    Reply

  3. I agree with you about cars, I would love to be able to live without one, but they are a necessary evil. Having said that when I lived in India cars were a luxury so I used public transportation all the time which was an utter nightmare-from long waits, to overloaded buses jam packed in the unbearable stifling heat,not to mention the rudeness and frazzled nerves. Trains were overrun with non ticketed passengers, so whenever I did travel by car it was a joyous experience.
    I have been able to avoid eating meat myself, but can see where you are coming from. I understand the human need to eat meat, but really would like to see humane methods of producing meat instead of the unspeakable cruelty we use towards the animals that we eat.
    I can’t agree with you about the waiters though. As others have said they are poorly paid for the most part (may be exceptions at the high end restaurants) and they depend on tips as their income. I actually try to pay more than required if the service is good. Bad service of course does not deserve a tip. I am curious as to what you do think about tipping airport wheelchair pushers, or hairdressers.
    By the way I love your blog. I discovered it a while back and always find your writing interesting.

    Reply

    • In reply to poonam

      Glad you like the topics I choose to write about Poonam :)

      The waiters tipping thing is a divisive issue I agree. My main problem comes when I find them demanding a tip. I feel that waiters like depending on tips for living since it enables them to get much more than they would normally get if they were actually paid normally for the work they do. If not, they would have unionized and demanded minimum wages long ago – just like every other profession has done (this is in the US.)

      Others have commented on how in Japan no one expects a tip and they still give excellent service merely because it’s their job to do so…

      Reply

      • In reply to bhagwad

        You lie every time you walk into a restaurant with the intention to not tip without telling your server that in advance.

        You bend over to every other principle you claim to have.

        You are an insincere, worthless person. Do the world a favor and stop communicating your poisonous opinions.

        Reply

  4. I guess it’s already mentioned before in the comments that waiters’ wages are peanuts and they primarily rely on tips. And yes it has to change–the minimum wage needs to be raised. Though it would mean a drop in the quality of service.

    In Germany, tipping is not required to the same extent as in the US. Usually I round up the bill to the euro or maybe add one more. The waiters are paid better here than in the US. The quality of service is much worse. I still think Germany’s model is better than that of the US.

    And regarding eating meat in the US: I recently (about 1.5 years back) turned vegetarian. And I was never a big meat eater anyway. But I find it more difficult to be a vegetarian in Germany than in the US. And, India is a vegetarian’s heaven.

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