UNDERSTANDING LIFE

The man is under constant inflow of painful waves which pinch his mind and soul right from the birth till his death.

He may be poor or rich, handsome or ugly, ruler or the ruled, young or old, male or female, celebrity or commoner or anyone, he can’t avoid the brutal brunt of time. The sobs, sighs and sufferings are a reality of human life. They are the stories of everyone’s door. They are universal facts.

The commoners, the poor and the lower strata people are struggling hard against poverty, diseases, epidemics, securities, respect and identity. The children die starved, under nourished and untreated. The epidemics like the chicken Guinea, the dengue, the cholera, the poxes, the malaria, mumps and measles wash away total populace at one jolt. These haves not sufferers are easy prey of fatal diseases. For these people, death is a daily and routine occurrence. Their lives are smitten in penury, problems and agonies. The widows, widowers and orphans can easily be found there. The stinking slums stifle and strangulate their lives. Their short lives slowly and slowly smolder away.

The stardom, celebrity status and glamour may look tempting and charming for a while, but there are different stories behind the curtain. To think that these people are beyond doubts, fear, stresses, miseries, anxieties and complexities is utter nonsense. We are acquainted only with few of their pompous and artificial hours where they appear with effortful glee and giggle on their painted face. Only their braggart and bombarding hours are publicized and propagated. They have their personal life haunted by friends, neighbors, relatives, fans, business partners, co workers, office personnel, bosses and subordinates. They have their hoarse rivals in cruel competitive world. They have also the human emotions like ambitions, anger, love, desires, likes and dislikes. They also reflect and react on losses or gains, on applause or abuses and on success and failures. They have also 24x7 routine of life. Out of overnight performances, exuberant assignments, hectic schedules and exhaustions strain their body and mind. The haunts of rivalry, treachery, divorce, separation makes them restless, rude and broken. They often use pills to kill self and sleep deprivations. Moreover these glittering stars are not beyond the agonies of life like disease, aging and deaths.

To say that “Where there is life, there is suffering” will not be exaggeration. The human species are sorely afflicted of it but the animals and plants are no exceptions. They too are, to some quantum, affected by them. The danger of food and safety ever looms in the lives of the animal. They too have emotions and natural instincts. They express them in many ways like mating, bearing, fostering, securing, and training their offspring to perpetuate their generations. They play, weep, cry and celebrate too in their lives. They communicate, assist and care to themselves. Everybody has seen the female deer fighting the wild beast to save her baby, the bird tweaking the snakes and hunter for her dear little ones and baby elephant well protected by the elders to protect from lions and tigers. The elephant nozzle up incessantly to wake up the dead and drowned baby elephant. Such are the instances how from a small insects to mammoth aquatic, terrestrial and celestial animals have huge agonies of foods and securities. They have fears, excitements, dominances and miseries of their own kinds.

The most latent, inexpressive and ignored world is of algae, herbs, shrubs, grasses, plants and forests. To fetch out that they have their emotions, miseries and agonies is a little bizarre and awkward. The scientists have proclaimed and proved that ‘The plants have almost all traits and features of a living being. They also beat and breathe. They have their own metabolic processes, needs and systems. They also display emotions in their own ways. The plant ‘touch me not’ is its superb example. It shrinks quickly when it is touched and expands slowly and slowly. The touch, sound, vibrations, air, light, water and surrounding definitely affect the plants. An experiment was done by a psychologist to test whether the human instincts affect the plants or not. By putting three similar plants into three different vases in the same atmospheric condition, the psychologist said kind and lovely words to one, unkind to second and unkindest to the third to a span of time. The astonishing result was observed. The first grew green and well while the third faded and dried away. Though this experiment was done to check the effect of our kind and cruel behavior to children, yet it sufficient proof to ascertain that the plants have their own agonies of life.

Being the wisest creature of the planet, the man broke away multifold bounds and boundaries of the Nature. The multiple complications originated throughout his quest for supremacy and success. He wept in wounds. He drowned in desires. He was throbbed and threatened defile deadlocks. He got callous cuts and fatal hurts. In spite of it, he endeavors a lot to soften the distresses and travails. But how much success does he get? It’s almost nothing as the man is made to suffer under tight claws of time, people and circumstances.

Sometimes he frustrates for the loss of his beloved and beautiful things or not to obtain the expected desires and dreams. His house accidently caught fire and destroyed. His son drowned in the river while bathing in the river. His daughter was abducted, raped and murdered. His wife hanged herself on the silliest issue. The rioters set his magnificent shop on fire. He was paralyzed out of heart stroke. He could not repay the debt of his son’s studies, his shop and ailment of his father. The son is over is not getting a suitable job. There is no suitable match for the daughter who is getting over aged. The shop is not running well as the cut throat and sharp edge competitions. The local criminals send life threatening messages if not given the demanded amount. He feels ashamed and inferior of not letting his children admitted in prestigious schools and coaching centers, not letting children to dinner at multi star hotels, shopping malls, theatres and picnic spots on every weekend as all the other neighbors do. The size, cost and shine of the car of neighbors also dishearten him. The marbles, glasses, lawns and designs of the bungalow of the neighbors weaken his morale and confidence. Such are the everyday’s’ agonies in man’s routine life.

The process continues throughout the life span of individual. Right from the advent of human race upon the planet, the man has experienced it.

Though a man may boast for the outstanding and extra-ordinary achievement in the long run of life but the real black spot of human development is that he could not recoup the human loss of losing himself. The man is constantly distancing himself from his own self. He frantically searches solace, comfort and pleasure around the world and in the crowds, whereas his that nectar lies within him. He is perversely unaware and unfamiliar with this secret. His frets, struts and bewilder on non cognition and not attainment of the real joy and happiness. He is strayed, stranded and astrayed in the pursuit of divine juice of liveliness. He fails to look within him and that enhances his agonies and ugliness. He crushes cruelly his self in the eerie craze and eccentricity to find the pleasure beyond and without. He becomes hugely strange to himself.  

No doubt, today we are on the unprecedented stage of human development. The man has transcended and superseded all the previous records of advancement in every ambit of human life. Now he has earned the title of machine man, technical man, robotic man, super man and so others, but amid the same he has lost the human values which has been carried on from one generation to another.  The blind chase of dreams and destinations has extracted away of the essence of human values. He even sacrifices the delicate and lovely relatives and their relationships.

He sways in to lonely ways and singular directions. He kills unkindly the worthy knots and terms with own race and own people. He considers such beautiful bondages as boredom and burdensome. He flies with fragile and feeble feathers with no one to see and support. His sky high aspirations and mountainous ambitions make him desolate, forlorn and lonely. His human values to nurture and nourish the beautiful bonds of relationships get harshly subdued, submerged and subverted. That deepens up his own as well as other’s agonies of loneliness. Thus, he has suffered the loss of human relationship. Though there are relationships, they are only for namesake. The very tenderness and softness is lost somewhere in unknown land. Even in his own family, he finds himself strange.

So this actual picture prevails in every section of society wherever a man lives. The continents and countries scattered at the globe, wherever the humanity and living organism reside, they have the agonies in common. The agonies of life pervade universally throughout the world in American, Europeans, Africans, The West, Mid and East Asians and the Australians face birth, marriage, death, love, fear, anger and hates. They have wraths on abuses and attacks. They have love on applauses and appreciations. They smile on cozy and trickling jokes. They frown on rude and brutalities. They shed genuine tears on losses. They enjoy on victories and success. They mourn the death and marvel the births. So agonies equally and universally prevail to all horizons under the skies.

He runs after the perfection.  Does he get? Absolutely not, as to adjust with losses has become his nature. Where his competence retrogrades, he leaves on lot or time. He tries his best to integrate with it. Shrouded and surrounded by agonies of life, he has learnt adaptation and adjustment. When he fails, fall and fumble, he surrenders himself helplessly to time and circumstances. His torn, tired and shattered self get a momentary refrain and relief. He gropes into new ways and possibilities to tackle the tough and tedious hours. His novelties, innovations and creations form other agonies of varied types and colors. The agonies of life rather worsen than to ease down.

For example, to replace and substitute the traditional weapons of battles like spears, swords, maces and bows, the man invented rifles, machine guns, revolvers, missiles, atom bombs and nuclear weapons. What do they signify? The consecutive two inglorious world wars hastened the inventions of such heinous, fatal and catastrophic weapons. They consist the capability and power to destroy the planet’s occupants at eye’s blink. The chemical, bio, gas and heterogeneous weapons are the monsters and name of disasters. They can gobble up the world within seconds. The accidental deaths on speedy aero planes, trains, buses and other vehicles are well known to all. The electricity, gases and appliances used at domestic purposes, offices and public places are other hidden and hideous names of calamities and casualties. So, such things although make the human life easy going, smooth, better, exact and quicker, yet the looming danger inherent in them pose great challenge to his own survival. Here too, the agonies do persist in his own decisions, devise and attainments.

Until there is breath and beat, there will be agonies. The agonies of life can never be erased and eradicated. They move magnificently with movement of life on earth. Even the great sages like Lord Gautam Buddha, Prophet Mohamed and Lord Christ and thousand others could not eradicate it, what to say about common folk and citizenry. They preached the illustrious sermons and strenuous teachings to love, peace, happiness, fraternity, compassion, gratitude, faith, tolerance, magnanimity and benevolence. What did they achieve? How much impression did they leave upon living world? Even many philanthropists and liberal scholars criticize their contributions saying that “These sages and prophets have rather ruptured the humanity by dividing into sects who ever are on eternal clash, conflict and collide. They fight together brutally to prove, strengthen and establish their supremacy over others”. After judicious and impartial analysis, their roles cannot be negated and denied as they and their devout have given exemplary service to humanity.  If they could not eradicate it, at least they curtailed, mitigated and minimized the agonies of life.

To think of abolishing it is insane and foolish thinking. We can mitigate by our common sense, cooperation and understanding. They can be diminished by control over our dreams, desires and ambitions. All essential human values like love, peace, kindness and cooperation should be well revered and venerated. That may make the world less afflicted of agonies than to be heinously drowned and dead in it.