Back with my second blog.I must admit its not as easy as i thought.One needs a lot of will power to get down to write.Anyway one fundamental question that we grapple with is what life is and what it means to us? What follows is two sides of a coin which might give a rough idea of what life might be.It is upto evry thinking individual to work out the answer for himself/herself.
While going through some material, i came across a phrase by Samuel Beckett,through which he defines life as a "flash between the womb and the tomb". Well you can agree or disagree with him.But this set my mind thinking on what life really is and how we should look at it.Those who agree with the statement which includes me,would look at the larger cosmic picture thereby comparing life on earth which can be measured in terms of a number with the universe at large which is infinite and cannot be measured against a number.Looking at it from this view, life obviously is nothing but a flash,its like a dot,a peck in the cosmos.This also entails within it the inconsequentiality of all human actions,thus making the opposition between good and evil,right and wrong,happy and sad,light and dark vanish on account of being irrelevant.This view necessarily provides peace and solace and helps one to come to terms with life in a more philosophical and hence fundamental way.The politics,the corruption,the poverty,the savagery and the rot that one finds in this world cease to matter since one knows that all this is fickle and transitory in nature.Also the preposterous,pretentious and egoistical means of behaviour found in a person become laughable traits since the believer of this view has the superior power of putting this in perspective knowing that human life is by definition transitoy in nature,as we take gradual steps towards death from the beginning of our birth.Shakespeare rightly called the world a stage and men and women merely players,who act their roles as they wait for the inevitable.If life is nothing but a flash does this make living/life futile?
Not necessarily,because a flash means that one has less time in his/her hands and therefore should live life fully-proactively,passionately and intensely.
This takes me to the other view which is that life is not just a flash.It is something more.While it is true that we continuously wait for the inevitable,it may be argued that it is in the very act of waiting that we find our existence(just like Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett's Waiting For Godot).It is the awareness that we are but mortals that gives meaning to our lives and makes it worth living passionately.The awareness that the dreary clock is ticking by, compels us to live life fully and in the best possible way.If we ignore the former viewpoint discussed in this blog,we would have infront of us the enormous task and responsibility of living sixty years (will vary from person to person but just for the sake of argument,i have taken the average lifespan of humans as 60years) on earth which is a considerable time.Life then would be measured in terms of definite numbers and will then go beyond than just being a "flash between the womb and the tomb."
While going through some material, i came across a phrase by Samuel Beckett,through which he defines life as a "flash between the womb and the tomb". Well you can agree or disagree with him.But this set my mind thinking on what life really is and how we should look at it.Those who agree with the statement which includes me,would look at the larger cosmic picture thereby comparing life on earth which can be measured in terms of a number with the universe at large which is infinite and cannot be measured against a number.Looking at it from this view, life obviously is nothing but a flash,its like a dot,a peck in the cosmos.This also entails within it the inconsequentiality of all human actions,thus making the opposition between good and evil,right and wrong,happy and sad,light and dark vanish on account of being irrelevant.This view necessarily provides peace and solace and helps one to come to terms with life in a more philosophical and hence fundamental way.The politics,the corruption,the poverty,the savagery and the rot that one finds in this world cease to matter since one knows that all this is fickle and transitory in nature.Also the preposterous,pretentious and egoistical means of behaviour found in a person become laughable traits since the believer of this view has the superior power of putting this in perspective knowing that human life is by definition transitoy in nature,as we take gradual steps towards death from the beginning of our birth.Shakespeare rightly called the world a stage and men and women merely players,who act their roles as they wait for the inevitable.If life is nothing but a flash does this make living/life futile?
Not necessarily,because a flash means that one has less time in his/her hands and therefore should live life fully-proactively,passionately and intensely.
This takes me to the other view which is that life is not just a flash.It is something more.While it is true that we continuously wait for the inevitable,it may be argued that it is in the very act of waiting that we find our existence(just like Vladimir and Estragon in Beckett's Waiting For Godot).It is the awareness that we are but mortals that gives meaning to our lives and makes it worth living passionately.The awareness that the dreary clock is ticking by, compels us to live life fully and in the best possible way.If we ignore the former viewpoint discussed in this blog,we would have infront of us the enormous task and responsibility of living sixty years (will vary from person to person but just for the sake of argument,i have taken the average lifespan of humans as 60years) on earth which is a considerable time.Life then would be measured in terms of definite numbers and will then go beyond than just being a "flash between the womb and the tomb."
