Some people’s lives seem so perfect. They seem to want nothing. I became conscious of this only recently … after I really started feeling like an adult. That is, after I came face to face with the realities of my life.
Those people for whom everything has been arranged and provided for – well, I can say just one thing for sure about them: they will be totally devastated if ever they happen to meet a crisis. Maybe then it will be too late for them to learn life’s lessons.
What ‘seems’ to be perfect now may not be perfect tomorrow, may not have been perfect yesterday? (Gosh, this is going to be one profound blog. Can’t help it. Am in the mood for profundities.)
I used to hate uncertainties of any kind. I wanted everything to be clear, tangible, plannable, rock solid, unambiguous, understandable. I can only smile at myself.
This is not just about my life. Don’t you think this is how life is by default? And this is what makes life so miserable and beautiful.
I was reminded today of Jayant Kaykini’s regular column in Hi Bangalore (a Kannada tabloid) that I had read about two years ago. Kaykini talked of how we all whine about our daily routines and yearn to do something else, or be some place else, etc. That is, we are generally intolerant to what has become very fixed and certain in our life. But according to Kaykini, we should be grateful for these certainties. Because without them, we would be lost. Every morning we would have to figure out what to do and where to go. Maybe some of us would like to do something really ‘wacky’ once in a while, but if the madness becomes a part of your life, then God save you.
I often found Kaykini’s columns to be of the romantic nostalgic kind. But I was with him on this. Right now, there are many uncertainties in my life. So he makes sense to me. But somewhere in my mind lurks a fear of certainty, of things unchangeable. At least, one uncertainty will go and bring another uncertainty. But eternity is incomprehensible, quite scary. Because however uncertain, there are some things in all our lives that just wont go away. Am I ready for it? Is anyone ready for it? Ok, by now I guess I have stopped making sense to most of you. But this is my blog, so I give a damn! Grin. :)
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5 comments:
This might not be directly connected to your blog.. but anyway, here it goes.
I read somewhere that we are scared of uncertainity not because it is uncertain.. it is because of the fear that, that uncertain event might not be good for us.
You said "they will be totally devastated if ever they happen to meet a crisis".
But that does not put us (who aren't having the 'perfect' life) in a better position. We are not OK with ourselves rightnow. That takes a definite amount of happiness out. Whether we think about future bad events or not, in going through the process of thinking about bad things in life, we loose some happineess.. And if we finally do face those bad moments, we are sad anyway!!
So, marginally speaking, they are better off.
Determinism says that nothing happens by chance. If one believes that, life becomes passive. i.e we realize that we can not change anything that is going on or going to happen.. so why worry about it unnecessarily. As you said, living life moment by moment makes life miserable and beautiful. Enjoy the good ones, livethrough the bad ones. (tech jargon: moment generating functions reveal that chances of a bad event decreases exponentially when a sufficiently large timespan is taken :-D )
But, at a higher level of mind, both do not make any ripples in one's mind.
Hi Sham
I know that we are not better off. I also know that they are. After all, no one wants to be sad so that they can learn a lesson out of it. But what I am trying to say is: there are bad patches in everyone's life. If you have them early on, at least you dont live under any misconceptions. People with protected lives are a hundred times more ill-prepared.
And no, I dont believe in determinism. It over-simplifies things. And at any given point of time, there will be more than one factor to be considered while understanding a phenomenon. Gosh, do I really make sense to you?
It's nice to see you here.
Hey Sham
You are not a blog regular, are you?
i am a regular blogger! (livejournal)
"...And at any given point of time, there will be more than one factor to be considered while understanding a phenomenon"
determinism does not mean that there is only one factor. It just means that, there are several factors.. but all those factors are already decided. We may not know them thats all!.
hence whether you contemplate on bad events in life or not, they are going to happen. thats all it says. Again, its upto the individual to think about them or just leave them to show up. But, I guess this is what I wanted to say. We shall not be more prepared to future events just because we thought that it would happen. Because, if determinism is true, (which we don't know) then preparation for the future does not change anything. (The preparation which we did was also planned!)
Now, I guess my thought process is getting blur. May be I am thinking too hard to proove you are wrong :-)
:)
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