Skip to main content

Journey


Meditation

I started this journey at some point in the pointless flow of eternity.  As purposelessly as the motion of a stone set rolling down a mountain by the insensate boot of a careless traveller.

Unlike the stone, I have a lot of freedom to choose my path, the mode of my travel, the diversions and digressions.  I can choose the people I want to meet, or at least my responses to them.  I can laugh or brood.  Laughter will not necessarily generate flowers on my way.  Flowers are not necessarily more desirable than brambles.

Why do I have to make this journey at all?  The May fly which has no mouth answered.  “I live just a few hours,” said the May fly which had no mouth.  “When I become an adult, I mate with another adult.  Then I die.  She lays eggs and she dies.  The eggs hatch.  More May flies are born.  Only to mate and die.”  And the May fly which had no mouth died.

I learnt that the May flies never eat any food.  They have neither a mouth nor a stomach.  Food is not required for such a short journey as a May fly’s.  Yet May flies make the journey.

What’s the point of the journey?  The point is that there is no point.

Okay, if your craving for a point is irresistible, how about this: the point is that you’ve got to go on.  You’ve been kick-started into motion like the stone on the mountain and you have no choice but roll on.  You’ve got to complete the journey.  It’s your journey and no one else can make it for you.

What will I gain in the end? I ask.  Nothing.  There’s nothing to gain.  Nothing to be lost either.  It’s a journey, not a commercial enterprise.  It’s a journey in which you are condemned to make choices.  Only the beginning and the end are not in your control.  All the rest is your choice.  The people are there around you because you’ve chosen to have them.  The places, the events – you’ve chosen them.  Of course, you had no choice but to choose.

Your choice determines the whats and whys of your life.  Call it meaning, purpose, loss or gain, what you wish. 

While making the inevitable journey,
You can choose to learn, though there is nothing to be taught.
You can choose to understand, though there is nothing to be explained.
You can choose to unfold secrets, though there is no secret.

You can choose to be wise, though in folly lies the real wisdom.

If you choose the folly of the wise, you will laugh much along your way. 


Top post on IndiBlogger.in, the community of Indian Bloggers


Comments

  1. A hard fact of life but then we all live with that idea is finding that one reason that one point because of which we are undertaking this journey. Many of us say "I cant live without you" but then life does go on so what you say is right.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The "point" is the problem, Athena. I have realised that there is no "point" at all. Your spouse is not the point, nor are your children, ultimately. Nor your job, career, earnings... Nothing matters in the end. Except, what you have discovered!

      Delete
  2. So true. It's all about our choices we make.

    P.S. I didn't know about a mayfly's life-cycle. Thanks to you, now I do :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are so many creatures which are one day wonders, Namrota. A fact that can make us wonder about the purpose of life. But the May fly is curious because even food is not a basic need in its case. Procreation seems to be the basic purpose of life!

      Delete
  3. Just playing an anti-thesis here....no matter how much we would like to believe in "Free will" always remember the quote from the usual suspects , “the greatest trick the devil/angle ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist”. Free will is an illusion, it’s all connived already by someone. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Free will is a double-edged game, Sachin. Have you heard of the donkey which was given the boon of free will? It could choose the hay on the right or the hay on the left. It decided to make use of free will. When it turned left, free will told him, "You have the freedom to choose what's on the right." So it turned right. And you know what the free will told him. And it went on. Until the donkey died. :)

      Delete
  4. What I hated the most is that I had "no choice but to choose" and I have long laments about being made to choose the wrong options; just the fact that there is nothing to be gained or lost is what makes me still try to make better choices :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "made to choose"? teny? Who made you choose anything? YOU choose. Don't be made to choose. Freedom is responsibility. Don't blame anybody.

      Delete
  5. Very true, Sir.
    "you had no choice but to choose."
    Not making a choice is also a choice.
    May we make the right choices & enjoy Life's journey :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I too wish that enjoyment of the journey to everybody, Anita. That's all what life is about.

      Delete
  6. Nicely put...most of us are happy to go about living our lives until something really hits us bad... and we are like...why? And that is when we wish to search for answers to our existence. Understanding the game of life takes a little time to dawn on us! Just like the "big bang theory" our life is full of uncertainty and there is hardly any pattern, it is all random. Might as well enjoy the game while it lasts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. By the time we learn to play the game really well, our time is almost over :) Perhaps, life is all about that precisely: learning... the journey itself is the game.

      Delete
  7. Your observation that reproduction appears to be the only purpose is exactly the scientific view. 'You are only a vehicle for the survival of your genes', but such an answer satisfies no one, not even the scientist. There has to be some meaning in all this, otherwise why not stop this absurd journey here and now?
    -Shajan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The journey is absurd, Shajan. But why not stop it now? is the most philosophical question, according to Camus (The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays). I'm offering my answer here. The answer is purely mine, and it satisfies me.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I won’t vote

From Deshabhimani , Malayalam weekly Exactly a month from today is the Parliamentary election in my state of Kerala. This time, I’m not going to vote. Bernard Shaw defined democracy , with his characteristic cynicism, as “ a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve .” We elect our government in a democracy. And the government invariably sucks our blood – whichever the party is. The BJP and the Congress are like Tweedledum and Tweedledee though the former makes all sorts of other claims day in and day out. BJP = Congress + the holy cow. The holy cow has turned out to be quite a vampire and that makes a difference, no doubt. In our Prime Minister’s algebra, it is: (a+b) 2 which should be equal to a 2 and b 2 . There is an extra 2ab which is the holy cow. In George Orwell’s Animal Farm , the animals revolt against the human master and set up their own nationalist republic. Soon politics develops in the republic and some pigs become leaders. The porcine

Prelude to AtoZ

  From Garden of 5 Senses, Delhi [file pic] Hindsight gives an unearthly charm and order to the past. There can be pain too. A lot of things could have been different, much better, if only we possessed the wisdom of our old age back in those days. As a writer put it, Oedipus, Hamlet, Lear and a lot of those guys must have thought, “I wish I had known this some time ago.” Life is a series of errors with intermittent achievements. The only usefulness of the errors may be the lessons they teach us. Probably, that is their purpose too. We are created to err so that we learn, I dare to put it that way. I turn 64 in a month’s time. It’s not inappropriate to look back at some of the people whom life brought into my life so that I would learn certain lessons. No, I don’t mean to say that life has any such purpose or design or anything. Life is absurd. People come into your life as haphazardly as vehicles ply on your road or birds poop on your head. Some of these people change the chemist

How Arvind Kejriwal can save himself

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah have a clear vision. Eliminate all opposition. Decimate them or absorb them. My previous post [link below] showed a few people decimated by them. Today let’s look at the others: those who are saved by joining the Bharatiya Janata Party [BJP]. 1. Himanta Biswa Sarma  This guy was in Congress and faced serious charges related to the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam. He also faced corruption charges related to drinking water supply in Guwahati. His house was raided by the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI]. Then he switched over to BJP and all his crimes just vanished. It’s as simple as taking a dip in the Ganga and all your sins are forgiven. Today he is the chief minister of Assam. Nothing is heard of all the charges that were levelled against him. 2. Amarinder Singh  This former Captain in the Indian Army was a Congressman until Modi’s Enforcement Directorate [ED] started raiding him, his son and his son-in-law. He put an end to all those raid

The Good Old World

Book Review Title: Dukhi Dadiba and irony of fate Author: Dadi Edulji Taraporewala Translators: Aban Mukherji and Tulsi Vatsal Publisher: Ratna Books, Delhi, 2023 Pages: 314 If you want to return to the good old days of the late 19 th century, this is an ideal novel for you. This was published originally in Gujarati in 1913. It appeared as a serial before that from 1898 onwards in a periodical. The conflict between good and evil is the dominant motif though there is romance, betrayal, disappointment, regret, and pretty much of traditional morality. Reading this novel is quite like watching an old Bollywood movie, 1960s style. Ardeshir Bahadurshah, a wealthy Parsi aristocrat in Surat, dies having obligated his son Jehangir to find out his long-lost brother Rustom. Rustom was Bahadurshah’s son in his first marriage. The mother died when the boy was too small and the nurse who looked after the child vanished with it one day. Ratanmai, Bahadurshah’s present wife, takes her

Kejriwal’s Arrest in Modi’s Kurukshetra

For some mysterious reason, Arvind Kejriwal’s arrest reminded me of Haren Pandya. Maybe, because Pandya’s 21 st death anniversary is approaching (26 March). Have you forgotten Haren Pandya? He was the Home Minister of Gujarat before Narendra Modi assumed dictatorial powers in that state. Modi chose to teach humility to Pandya by making him the Minister of State for revenue. Pandya chose not to learn humility from Modi and resigned from that post in Aug 2002. Remember Gujarat of 2002? You should. A fire engulfed a train on 27 Feb 2002 killing 58 Hindu pilgrims who were returning from Ayodhya where they had gone to discover their god, not very unlike Christopher Columbus undertaking a voyage to discover India and messing it all up. What caused the fire in the train? Lord Ram knows probably. The upshot was that there was a riot in Gujarat by Hindus against Muslims. Haren Pandya is one of the BJP leaders who gave statements in many places indicting Modi for the riots. He asser