Musing

They say , " to understand Life, we must first understand Death". Last five years I have spent a lot of my time in the ICU waiting room as an attendant to my Grandparents. I saw dead bodies being moved to the morgue, I saw patients in the Neuro ICU wishing they were dead, I saw patients holding onto the last straw of Life in them. and its then that I realized, thats its when you are at that crossroads, where you decide to fight on or escape out of the miseries of "life" that it all comes down to checking out your balance. its then when you sit, staring at monitors checking the oxygen level in your heart, with the hope that there was a monitor to tell you how well you lived your life. it all comes down to that one moment. you look around and see if your departure ticket looks as good as your arrival one. its then when you life filters out the most important people in  your life -the ones who stood by you, the one who deserted you, the ones who tolerated you ,the ones who were in awe of you, the ones who are indebted to you and the one you are in debt of. It all comes down to that one moment.


So, do the rest of us need to wait for that one moment to dawn upon us and teach us a lesson or two about Life ? Do we need to wait for that crucial point when we realize all that we regret and all that we are proud of. Or can we write our scripts of life anticipating a Happy Ending and work our way backwards ? Making the causes today for the fruits to bear tomorrow.
But none of this is new. None of this is Rocket Science.  People have made millions selling this idea to the masses.
Yet if this is that simple to understand then why is that much tougher to implement ?
why is the cigarette and drugs industry booming ? Why do people still want to "live in the moment" ruthlessly and kill themselves in car accidents ? you don't need ancient wisdom or some saffron clothed Guru to tell you that you are literally writing your Death certificate by doing this. None of this is Parental Gyaan. Its just common sense. 


But why has our Generation become like this ? What happened to our collective conscience that we moved so far away from our True Selves? Do we have something as a True Selves ? or is this deterioration just part of the natural degeneration process? Are we dying as Humans and being reborn as Machines ? Or is this in some minds not considered a downslide? is this the destruction that is required to create a new world ?
Are we meant to Deroot so that the soil can be prepared for a new vegetation ?


Its very easy for Indians to blame westernization for the change in our Value System. Its very easy for the West to blame everything on the growing Materialism. Its very easy for the Global World System to blame everything on Technological Boom. We can blame every "ism" possible. But then does the solution lie in one of these various new jargons or will that too just pass like a trendy fashion statement. It cant be.


To Quote Dante - 
" you men on earth attribute everything
to the spheres' influence alone , as if 
with some predestined plan they moved all things.


if this were true, then our Free will would be annihilated..." ( Purgatory, The Divine Comedy)


"So, if the world today has gone astray,
the cause lies in yourselves and only there ! " - Dante. 


So if the effects are for all of us to see , were they all being caused in the recesses of our being ? Does the Universe really work inwards out and not outwards in ? But we know all this , no ?
We're almost tired of this now ! We are overfed with this jargon !!!
So now what ? what happens to those of us who want to build a new world order ! Are we arrogant to think that we can build a new world, that in the first place there is a need for a new world ? Are we pretentios intellectual elite who think . Thats it. Think. 


Can we change our intellectualization into concrete indestructible actions ? Can we really be hired as scriptwriters for our collective destiny. Can we really take that responsibility ? Are we capable? Or does taking initiative itself come with a Beginners Benefit of equipping us with the skills to face these herculean challenges ?


Can I as an Individual revolutionalise the way we study ? the way we learn in the world? Can I as a young girl of a developing country take singlehanded responsibility on behalf of the children born and unborn in this world? That they way we educate ourselves whether in classrooms or in open air gardens, will shape our new humanity? will be the cradle of our new Future?
If so, then what must be that which we bring out from our learning process? what is it that we equip our generations with ?
If we were to follow Steiner He says " “Don’t ask: What does the human need to know, what he should be able to do in order to “exist, survive, and live”within the existing society, But what is within the human, and what can be developed.” – (from his book The Three Fold Social Order)"
So what are these new skills that the new world order will bring with it ?
I don't know. But Im ready to do all I can to find out.
In the words of Robert Frost -
"and I took the path, Less Traveled"
My bags are packed. Im ready to go. In my luggage is my fortitude and seeking. I set out in this world. equipped with towering courage to weather the winds that blow. When I get there I hope to meet you , felow Traveler..
Till then, Bon Voyage.