modern ghosts

the 'law' must rank as one of the most important human invention ever. this is more astonishing for the fact that something so abstract and intangible can be so intertwined with everyday life and society as we know it. nations have been built and fell by it.

perhaps the beauty of it all is its inbuilt promise of prosecution if ever the means or urge arise to break it. i hazard to guess that without anarchy there would be no law bringing to mind the idea that god exists solely because of the devil.
a short few minutes ago i was waiting in my car at a traffic light. it was at a normally busy T junction but due to the fact that it was early and a sunday there was hardly any traffic to speak of. at the 3 o'clock position from me i noticed another row of motorists waiting patiently for the lights to turn green. the only light that was green out of the 3 was the one with no commuters. the seconds ticked away as both our lines waited. if i was an alien looking down on us from my spaceship overhead, i would have laughed my head off. still we idled until my light went green and off we putted away.

why do we do that? why do we still stick to the rules when its clearly benefiting no one in particular at this junction of time? of course if our 2 rows of cars had decided to throw caution to the wind and pushed ahead there would have a massive pile of twisted metal. that is just physics and thats not what i am talking about here. no one actually took the bait or rather no one dared. its interesting to see how ingrained the law is in the human psyche.

the lifeless traffic light consisting of a few bits of wiring, plastic and circuits framed within some very tough metal cowed us all. its awe-inspiring to see this soulless and mindless edifice exert such great power over the very species that gave birth to it in the 1st place. it embodies the law and the law will make life very uncomfortable if it is messed with. everyone knows that and everyone will tell their offspring. like folk tales passed on through generations it is the ghost of modern society, barely discernible from the djinns and imps that haunted people in the past. cautionary tales of our times told to keep wayward children in check.