{"id":142,"date":"2025-08-30T05:46:02","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T05:46:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harshvardhandutta.com\/blog\/?p=142"},"modified":"2025-08-30T05:46:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T05:46:03","slug":"monsters-and-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harshvardhandutta.com\/blog\/monsters-and-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Monsters and Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do we make monsters, or we just unearth them from within? Dark and philosophical, no? Well, such allegorical thoughts do come to mind when you have spent better part of the week reading Frankenstein, yes, the good old sci-fi novel by Mary Shelley. The books leave with you a paradoxical thought: to love or hate the monster? Is the monster made or born?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The book also delves into the theme of how one\u2019s appearance and demeanour, in this case not very eye-pleasing, can ostracise one from the society. Reminds me of the fact how an apparently cuter looking dog in my society gets more food and love than a lesser looking. Also, reminds me of something that Javed Akhtar said recently: Justice is man made. Nature has no justice.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shelley also exposes the flaws in the society, like the fear of the Church, but let that be for another post. To neutralise the impact of Frankenstein, I, in vain, started or restarted, The Metamorphosis. It was stupid of me to think the absurdity of Kafka would make me feel any better. It only added to the abyss of depression. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just me that Kafka queerly resembles Camus in more than one way.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Enough nihilism for the week I guess. The monsters of business do takeover at times. My personal monster (I say it half-jokingly here) is AI. You see, I have been in the business of creating textual content for ages. It paid my bills, and sometimes afforded me some luxuries (including the luxury of time), but good new AI has dislodged Google search and making content has never been easier. I somehow don\u2019t seem too rattled. I don\u2019t fear losing business &#8211; that\u2019s one fear as well. Perhaps, too much Kafka or rather Kafkaesque.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week, I plan to finish Knife, Salman Rushdie\u2019s memoir after his attack. A good old friend gifted this book last year, and I have been guilty of not doing justice to my favourite author. But then, justice is man made, no?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Adios for now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do we make monsters, or we just unearth them from within? Dark and philosophical, no? Well, such allegorical thoughts do come to mind when you&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/harshvardhandutta.com\/blog\/monsters-and-us\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Monsters and Us<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies-books","category-philosophy","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v15.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Monsters and Us - Harsh Vardhan Dutta<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/harshvardhandutta.com\/blog\/monsters-and-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Monsters and Us - Harsh Vardhan Dutta\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Do we make monsters, or we just unearth them from within? 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