Of hope and other things
Today, my dad told me about this strange feeling he had when he was watching a movie. He has watched the movie many times and he knows exactly what happens to each of its characters by the end of th movie. But still, somehow, he continued watching it in the hope that this time, in the face of tragedy, something else would happen to all of them, something different, something better. He was saying how pointless and almost stupid that hope was, because you know in your fully conscious mind, that it is never going to happen. But still, somewhere from deep within, there rises this strong hope and, faith even, that this time it is going to be different.
I keep thinking about it. I told him that in a way, that is exactly what keeps us going, that is what keeps us living. The hope that someday, things would be different. We wake up everyday and mechanically go through our lives in the hope that tomorrow would be much more better than today. Sometimes, it even is. So what if it is better only by a minuscule degree? It suddenly brings light and happiness into our lives. For sometime now, I have been struggling to find a reason to go on. I've been on the verge of giving up everything, in the dawn of realizing that our lives are noting but a pointless repetition of a farce. That life is a ridiculous prank someone played. But then, it is also so beautiful. Just like art and literature, the whole pointlessness of living is the point of it. It is what makes it so beautiful.
Opposing religious sentiments which claim suicide to be as worse a sin as murder, I feel that the fact that something like suicide exists is what adds to the beauty of living. You are not living because you have no other choice, but instead, because you choose to live. Suicide is always an option you have to get out of living like a wind up toy, pointlessly going around in circles, every single day. But you choose life over death, you choose the pointlessness over utility, simply because you can. And like any other art, living is also a form of hope. Hope for what? Art and literature envisions an alternate life, a parallel universe, where everything is different and beautiful. They turn pain into beauty. Life also does that, in an almost unconscious way. No matter how we live, we must find the strength to find hope, to find something to cling on to. In whatever form it may come, this is important. Everyday, one must find the strength to hope that tomorrow would be a better day.
What is the point of all this? It is the pointlessness of this that makes it so beautiful. One has to do something, not because he has to do it, but because he can do it. If one can find this hope in tomorrow even when there is nothing to hope for, that is when he can give birth to beauty. That is the beauty of everything.
I keep thinking about it. I told him that in a way, that is exactly what keeps us going, that is what keeps us living. The hope that someday, things would be different. We wake up everyday and mechanically go through our lives in the hope that tomorrow would be much more better than today. Sometimes, it even is. So what if it is better only by a minuscule degree? It suddenly brings light and happiness into our lives. For sometime now, I have been struggling to find a reason to go on. I've been on the verge of giving up everything, in the dawn of realizing that our lives are noting but a pointless repetition of a farce. That life is a ridiculous prank someone played. But then, it is also so beautiful. Just like art and literature, the whole pointlessness of living is the point of it. It is what makes it so beautiful.
Opposing religious sentiments which claim suicide to be as worse a sin as murder, I feel that the fact that something like suicide exists is what adds to the beauty of living. You are not living because you have no other choice, but instead, because you choose to live. Suicide is always an option you have to get out of living like a wind up toy, pointlessly going around in circles, every single day. But you choose life over death, you choose the pointlessness over utility, simply because you can. And like any other art, living is also a form of hope. Hope for what? Art and literature envisions an alternate life, a parallel universe, where everything is different and beautiful. They turn pain into beauty. Life also does that, in an almost unconscious way. No matter how we live, we must find the strength to find hope, to find something to cling on to. In whatever form it may come, this is important. Everyday, one must find the strength to hope that tomorrow would be a better day.
What is the point of all this? It is the pointlessness of this that makes it so beautiful. One has to do something, not because he has to do it, but because he can do it. If one can find this hope in tomorrow even when there is nothing to hope for, that is when he can give birth to beauty. That is the beauty of everything.
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