Skip to main content

Wisdom of Folly



Zorba the Greek is one of the most fascinating fictional characters that I have ever come across. Though he is in his 60s, his passion for life is still youthful. He loves music and dance, wine and women, hard work and quiet sleep. He doesn’t look any different from the man next door. But he is different. He is enlightened. Religion and philosophy don’t appeal to him. They are absurd, according to him. What can a god mean in a world of injustices, cruelty and untold pain? What does the wisdom of the philosopher amount to in front of the beauty of a lily or the gurgle of a mountain brook?

Cast your gods and your wisdom into the sea, Zorba would say, and listen to the rhythm of the waves if you want to enjoy life. Life is not to be understood by philosophy and theology. Life is to be enjoyed every moment. Every moment, yes, up to your grave. Enjoy not only your food and wine but also the work you do. And don’t try to understand too much of anything.

“You understand,” he admonishes the narrator of the novel who is actually his boss, “and that’s why you’ll never have any peace. If you didn’t understand, you’d be happy!”

This is one of the many lessons of life that eluded me for a long time. Now that I have reached Zorba’s age, I know how right he is. I first read the novel, Zorba the Greek, when I was in my late 20s. I loved it. I admired Zorba. But I could never bring myself to emulate his spirit. I guess that’s how life is: we have to arrive at certain truths the hard way.


Once we arrive there, we know that even the wisest person is never far from folly. “Every man has his folly,” as Zorba puts it, “but the greatest folly of all … is not to have one.” Zorba and Albert Einstein, Michelangelo and you my wise reader, all had/have irrational desires and incompatible aims. The greatest of geniuses and the holiest of saints are not free from delusions and aberrations. Even these geniuses and saints are evolved apes who blunder again and again along the way.

It’s okay to blunder. If only I had accepted that long ago, my life would have been far less miserable.

PS. This is the 3rd part of a series #MissedLessons. The previous parts are:

1. Idealism vs Realism

2. An Ounce of Appreciation

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanDecember 1, 2021 at 5:08 PM

    Hari OM
    Life is designed for the 'blunder' - the gaining of experience is what gives it the grit from which to form a pearl... again I say, this is a fine series you have set in flow! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 1, 2021 at 5:23 PM

      Thanks, Yamini. The flow was broken by a cataract surgery I had on Saturday.

      Delete
  2. The Moon's BOYFRIEND December 1, 2021 at 6:42 PM

    I feel that like your writing is telling me something...

    "Live your life the way you want... Be in the moment... just start livin'."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 1, 2021 at 7:04 PM

      Yes,live your life the way you HONESTLY want. Discover your truths. Borrowed truths won't bring lasting happiness.

      Delete
  3. magiceyeDecember 2, 2021 at 6:43 AM

    Loved it! As they say, wisdom comes from experience and experience from mistakes!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalDecember 2, 2021 at 7:13 AM

      One mystery for me is why certain people never learn from their mistakes and experiences.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
14 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more