My Little Epiphanies

written across days

Existence. Why are we really here on this earth ? Sometimes, it feels all useless. A person does so much in life, runs after so many things - success, happiness, fame, dreams, peace and what not. But it all comes crashing down in the blink of an eye. A clot in your blood vessel and you are gone. Everything down to zero. No dreams, no happiness, no peace, no purpose.

Pain. There’s so much of it in the world. If one starts thinking about it, one is sure to go mad. Raw human pain and suffering - from the hungry child on the street to the teenager going through a heartbreak, to a patient of depression, to a Class 12 student who doesn’t pass the mark, to the families torn apart by death, to communities oppressed by society, to an officer whose honesty becomes his liability and to the corrupt whose lust becomes his weakness. Disease. Hunger. Oppression. Suffering - physical and mental. Struggle. Fatigue. Death.

They talk of Hope. Happiness. Justice. Peace. Prosperity. Adventure. Courage. Fulfilment. Light. But do they exist ? In small pockets maybe but are they enough to validate existence. I dream today, I am dead tomorrow. What happens to my dreams ? My hope. Extinguished. In a blink.

And yet, I cannot live like this. Thrust into this craziness, I have to make my way through it. Somehow. But optimism is tiring. Hope takes effort. Sometimes, it just feels easy to fall into an abyss and think about these questions. Alone. Why should I hope ? Just because I have to live somehow and hope is the best way to do it ? Maybe. But then surely, hope is not as strong and powerful as it’s supposed to be if it’s just a last resort.

The world is so huge. So many people. So much suffering. What can you do ? Something, they say. But drinking drops of water, even a thousand, doesn't give relief. Only a glassful does. So, what’s the value of this “something” - of “do whatever you can”. Nothing much is gonna change. People will still die in ignominy.

Faith. So illogical. So unscientific. The mother of religion. So problematic. So violent. So nefarious. Yet, faith keeps people going. I don’t know why. But if there’s no reason for why we are born, for why pain exists, for what we are doing, why not faith without a reason. Faith has kept people going in the most miserable of times, in the face of the most unthinkable adversity. It’s not about believing or not believing in a God, it is a belief that there is a force beyond us which will make things right.

Love. Ahhh that feeling. How do I describe it? It's an ocean, unfathomable. A sky, unlimited. It’s what makes us human. It is love which lets my mother know when I am not doing well just by hearing my voice over the phone, it is love which makes an otherwise mundane afternoon magical in the company of one’s partner and it is love which wields the power to make a human sacrifice his own life for another.

Beauty. The sunset kissing the limitless sky goodbye by leaving behind its colour, the waterfall composing music to entertain its green companions, the pointed peaks reaching to the sky from humble earth, the blue ocean - so calm, so vast. Verses that bring tears to the eye, stories that speak through the centuries, music that touches the soul. Is it beauty that we live for ? To be witness to so enchanting a reality, to experience bliss ‘Spite of despondence’ ?

I know not.

Today, I watched Interstellar. After I finished it, I felt disillusioned, as always. I felt so small and insignificant in comparison to the largeness of this Universe. SO many things we don’t know. I felt small in the face of the mind which envisioned the film. I felt small, thinking about problems like whether to share a copyrighted worksheet with a person when there are questions of our survival to be answered. Yet, ironically, there was a tinge of amazement and greatness amidst this self-inflicted injury. Awe. Pure awe at what the human mind can accomplish. Not just in terms of making a movie of such stature but at the fact that we, insignificant pieces of dust, have travelled to space, clicked photographs of our Earth, developed something as beautiful as Mathematics, built rockets which stretch our boundaries and stepped on the Moon. The same moon which at night seems so far away, so distant, so unreachable. Does this not speak of the greatness of the human race ? Of the immense potential of our species ? Of the value of our existence ?

I know not.

And yet, of all the opportunities available, I chose to pick the Law. Why couldn’t I have become a scientist ? Doing something both intellectually stimulating as well as practically useful. Taking Man to Mars or making a vaccine ? Separated from the sheer vulgarity of the human condition ? I have chosen something that I know, if I pursue it properly, will stab me everyday. When undertrials languish in jails for years on end before they are proved innocent, when murderers become our “elected representatives”, when students are labelled terrorists, when there is corruption at every desk of this huge country - what am I gonna do with the Constitution in my hand ? Fight against the current my whole life and return a destroyed man ? Or resign to the circumstance and earn money like a nice, productive member of the middle class ?

Only time will tell.

Right now, I am just going with the flow. Trying to make sense of this world, step by step. Talking with people around me - friends and teachers. Debating. Writing. Preparing for entrance exams. Watching videos. Reading. Learning a new language. Keeping in touch with old companions. Getting disturbed every time I switch on the news. Marveling at the beauty of the Constitution. Getting inspired from the courage of a few. Looking forward to an exciting journey ahead. Who knows ? I may live for a decently long time and bring about some change, after all.

Hope. I am choosing you. Let’s see if you choose me.

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The title of this post has been borrowed from a book by Aisha Chaudhary.

Photo by Adi K from Pexels

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