Early Morning Musings Part 6

 

I’m surprised by people who have energy to live. For people with optimism, or joy, or even the sheer will to trudge through the quagmire of decisions, responsibilities- to have these qualities surprises me. Like how? How can they bear this burden?

 

Are they allwise? Actually knowledgeable of their qualities? Of their decisions, execution of ‘responsibilities’, the ‘burden of decisions’? The fact that their optimism has blinded them to the belief that being blind is ‘living’? Am I that feeble, ignorant, and weak and unwilling to reach this stage to feel the need to live? To make decisions myself and abide by them? Is it time for my ego to shatter?

 

Or are they mere servants? Of decisions they are afraid to take? And would like to blame in circumstance? I ‘have’ to do this? I ‘have no choice’? I ‘must do this’? Am I the wise one – the awoken? The one who refuses to bend? Or am I so full of myself that I can’t see some omniscient truth?

 

People say there is ‘a lot to life for’. What is this ‘a lot’? All of them are different types of activities to release different amounts of different types of chemicals in the hormonal system. At the end there are limited, only that we have given them different names based on intensities and social circumstance. Love, ecstasy, orgasmic, thrill, fear, sadness, grief, anger, lust, rage, surprise etc. And one can admit that for every person the experience and/or response to these chemical reactants is unique. But is that a reason to endure life – or even a basis to define a purpose of life – to experience chemical reactions? Biologically, our aim is to propagate our DNA. If we can choose to not propagate our DNA, we have already ‘defeated’ that purpose. If that is the sole purpose, should I bother continuing this wretched life. If it isn’t, and because I have emotional entanglement with others, should I continue this tiring progress for their sake? Why?

Decisions. Decisions.

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He walked into the sea of sand dunes. It was time. He had decided to know his actual worth and the extent of his luck. He did go provisioned as a sailor. Water, food – but only as much as he could carry. His body with its travails and voyages could carry much, but only enough. He would not survive if luck abandoned him. And he had rarely made his own.

 

So off he went, trudging through the waves of dunes, the storms of sand. Covering his eyes, nose, as he shielded himself from the salty showers. No wealth at the end of this voyage. But if he survived, he would have accomplished something meaningful finally – in his own eyes at least. His foot ploughed through the sand like the prow of his last ship.

          

                           And he walked.

                           He walked.

                     He picked and dropped his foot. One step at a time the dunes rose and fell.

 

His thirst was much, but his water sack didn’t succour him. His purpose, his quest for his worth would only satisfy him.

The seas had been kind. The winds too. The strange lands were fortuitous and his wisdom found profit always. But it was always fortune which helped him. What if he gave up on the sea?

Was he worth anything? His palace, his harem, his legacy across the seven seas… But what if that was not him? The desert sands would not help him.

He had learnt to read the seas. He knew to navigate them and reach prosperity. Or was that luck? At last the sand was stripping him off his faith, his hope, his confidence, his ego. If there was treasure here, he knew he would find it – if luck was on his side. Then he would kill himself. He wanted to not find his treasure. For once, Sindbad was to fail. He had deemed this his ultimate sacrifice – he was tired. Tired of his success? No. Tired of success that had caused him doubt and heaped expectations. He wanted to give up. He had tried six times since his first voyage, but luck had helped him become richer than ever.

He hoped the blood red suns would finally carve him to pieces. Make him bleed, kill him. Show him his worth. For he refused to believe he was gifted. How could he – an ordinary porter who became a sailor – then a prospector – then an admiral, be anything other than just a lucky person?

So he had to die – one way or another.

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