Skip to main content

Live Life Fully


Alexis Zorba, the protagonist of Nikos Kazantzakis’s novel Zorba the Greek, lives life to its fullness. He embraces human experience with his whole heart. He is not interested in rational explanations and intellectual isms. His philosophy, if you can call it that at all, is earthy, spontaneous and passionate. He loves life passionately. He celebrates it. Happiness is a simple affair for him. “I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing happiness is,” he tells us. “A glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.” You don’t need a lot of things to be happy. Your possessions don’t bring you happiness. All that money you spent on your big house, big car, big everything… It helps to show off. But happiness? No way, happiness doesn’t come that way at all.

Zorba loves to play his musical instrument, santouri. He loves to sing. To dance. But don’t get me wrong. He works too. He works hard. There’s no fullness of life without that hard work. “This is true happiness,” he will tell you, “to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realise of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.”

A fairy tale. Can you make your life a fairy tale?

The fullness of life lies in your ability to make your life a fairy tale with its magic and miracles.

Miracle is nothing but a change of attitude.

Give up some of that gargantuan ego. Chisel off the jutting cerebration. Come down to the earth and live there. Feeling it with your feet. Touching it with your heart. You know too much. You think too much. That’s why you won’t be happy. Happiness is an emotion. Experience it in your neurons. Experience it in the breeze that wafts from across your horizons.

Zorba is passionate and exuberant. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know the tragedies of human existence. Suffering, loss and death are all inevitable parts of life. Accept it. And go on. With a smile on your lips and a dance in your heart.

Don’t complicate life with religion, Zorba will tell you. If you bring God in, the devil is sure to follow. There will be a mess soon. What you need is a bond with the universe. That is the real religion. Have you ever experienced a mystical connection with life itself, beyond the dogma of your creed and scriptures and rituals? If not, you can give up your religion safely: it has done you no good. Try Zorba’s religion. Learn to sing a song. To dance to a tune. Or at least to enjoy the breeze on your face.

Life is absurd. It doesn’t fit in neat philosophical theories.  Not in charming theologies. Or soothing prayers, formulaic rituals, ardent pilgrimages. Life is a mystery to a large extent, Zorba will tell you. Can you embrace that mystery? Without needing answers? If you can, you will unfold the wings of your personal freedom, your very authenticity… and you will spread your wings… and FLY.

PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon

Previous Posts in this series:

1. Heights of Evil

2. Pip Learns the Essential Lessons

3. Delusions and Ironies of Love

4. Good Old Days without meetings

5. Finding Enlightenment

6. An Oracle Gives up his Goddess

7. The Ruler Matters

8. The Agony of Ivan Karamazov

The series will end with one more post.

 

Comments

  1. Pradeep NairSeptember 8, 2024 at 10:19 AM

    Life is not to be dissected or rationalized, but to be lived with passion, spontaneity, and a connection to the world around us! True happiness lies in the simple joys is it not? Good food, music, hard work, and may be occasional surprises in life! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Chandra SundeepSeptember 8, 2024 at 10:53 AM

    What you need is a bond with the universe. That is the real religion! Such a simple idea, and yet, we make life complicated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 8, 2024 at 12:04 PM

      We make life complicated because of our own vulnerabilities. I'll conclude this series with the vulnerability of Alfred Prufrock and the alien wisdom of Little Prince. 👍

      Delete
  3. Yamini MacLeanSeptember 8, 2024 at 1:20 PM

    Hari Om
    Zorba captivated my younger self and was one of the inspirations for my own search for the simple. I've been told so many times that I've not lived to my full potential... And I say I have lived it as intended: day by day, roll and sway, bringing the tale my way! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 8, 2024 at 1:29 PM

      I've got that impression about you, Yam. That you're a person who's found fulfilment in life.

      Delete
  4. Liz A.September 9, 2024 at 12:51 AM

    A fine philosophy.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sabina PillaiSeptember 9, 2024 at 6:37 PM

    Zorba's enigmatic and persona is full of insights for the reader.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 9, 2024 at 6:47 PM

      Zorba is an embodiment of the wisdom that Kazantzakis acquired in his life.

      Delete
  6. CareenaSeptember 18, 2024 at 10:09 PM

    I love this idea of the bond with Universe being the religion. Yep another fulfilling post. Bookmarked and shared with a few people I think need to read it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country where humour died

Humour died a thousand deaths in India after May 2014. The reason – let me put it as someone put it on X.  The stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra called a politician some names like ‘traitor’ which made his audience laugh because they misunderstood it as a joke. Kunal Kamra has to explain the joke now in a court of justice. I hope his judge won’t be caught with crores of rupees of black money in his store room . India itself is the biggest joke now. Our courts of justice are huge jokes. Our universities are. Our temples, our textbooks, even our markets. Let alone our Parliament. I’m studying the Ramayana these days in detail because I’ve joined an A-to-Z blog challenge and my theme is Ramayana, as I wrote already in an earlier post . In order to understand the culture behind Ramayana, I even took the trouble to brush up my little knowledge of Sanskrit by attending a brief course. For proof, here’s part of a lesson in my handwriting.  The last day taught me some subhashit...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Violence and Leaders

The latest issue of India Today magazine studies what it calls India’s Gross Domestic Behaviour (GDB). India is all poised to be an economic superpower. But what about its civic sense? Very poor, that’s what the study has found. Can GDP numbers and infrastructure projects alone determine a country’s development? Obviously, no. Will India be a really ‘developed’ country by 2030 although it may be $7-trillion economy by then? Again, no is the answer. India’s civic behaviour leaves a lot, lot to be desired. Ironically, the brand ambassador state of the country, Uttar Pradesh, is the worst on most parameters: civic behaviour, public safety, gender attitudes, and discrimination of various types. And UP is governed by a monk!  India Today Is there any correlation between the behaviour of a people and the values and principles displayed by their leaders? This is the question that arose in my mind as I read the India Today story. I put the question to ChatGPT. “Yes,” pat came the ...
10 comments
Read more

The Ramayana Chronicles: 26 Stories, Endless Wisdom

I’m participating in the A2Z challenge of Blogchatter this year too. I have been regular with this every April for the last few years. It’s been sheer fun for me as well as a tremendous learning experience. I wrote mostly on books and literature in the past. This year, I wish to dwell on India’s great epic Ramayana for various reasons the prominent of which is the new palatial residence in Ayodhya that our Prime Minister has benignly constructed for a supposedly homeless god. “Our Ram Lalla will no longer reside in a tent,” intoned Modi with his characteristic histrionics. This new residence for Lord Rama has become the largest pilgrimage centre in India, drawing about 100,000 devotees every day. Not even the Taj Mahal, a world wonder, gets so many footfalls. Ayodhya is not what it ever was. Earlier it was a humble temple town that belonged to all. Several temples belonging to different castes made all devotees feel at home. There was a sense of belonging, and a sense of simplici...
34 comments
Read more