LIFE

It all begins with a death sentence…..
Life is unsympathetic to all of us.
Men are loathsome- violent, cunning, selfish, racist, ethnocentric, judgmental- and also unsympathetic.
Every new life’s destiny and fate is sealed the moment they are born. We are all doomed to die. It’s so hopeless that it’s the biggest appeal all religions have. They promise bright sunny days of freedom in death, after enduring the dark and stormy days of living….
So at birth we are, with scant warning, thrust into a world that is full of crazy competition. A world that encourages sensationalism while discouraging consideration and depth. A society characterized by obscenity. We go through a system where many try, but largely fail, to redeem themselves.
And so we begin our journey redemption, full of false optimism, innocent in our hope. Pumped up like an athlete on steroids, giving a false impression of strength that is never sustained to the end. Our flames produce more light than heat. And inevitably the flames are put out too by some gushing wind. Or drenching rain. We are forever unprepared and unshielded from the vagaries of weather.
‘Gain first success, and all other things shall follow’, that’s the mantra that is crammed into your from an early age. It’s like the universal, eternal religion that we all subscribe to. First stop, talent. But we find that ours is too raw to result in anything meaningful. Either way we take inflexible stances when we identify our talent that it becomes dangerous mostly to ourselves. The legions of drug-abusing rock stars attest to this. Or even Maradona and 2pac. They had their lives blighted, or ended by their gifts.
But many of us have manic fits of creativity. Fact is most of us are not uniquely, or noticeably, gifted. We go through life taking after other people who have gone through the system. People who have experiences and stories to tell. People who’ve forgotten nothing, but sadly also learnt nothing! And so the unproductive and frustrating cycle continues. We are doomed to repeat their misery.
Many of us will proceed to live a bland life, mostly preoccupied with family, career and sex. Only a few will see their journey have special twists and peculiarities that will sometimes take them to obscure places and have them meet peculiar people. They may have extraordinary stories to tell, that are occasionally touching, but almost always bereft of serious reflection. They are only human.
Hence as it was, is and always shall be!! Except it isn’t, and it wasn’t.
I still believe that each of us has within them what it takes to enjoy sunny, productive days hears on earth. The odds notwithstanding……