Gently touched by the first rays of light, the leaves glow with a golden hue as if emanating a divine light… The sunlight filters through these leaves and envelopes you like a warm blanket. It is on one such morning that I 'saw' these trees standing tall in the early morning sun. Waking up early is not a rarity with me and I have often marveled at the beauty of this sight but then for some reason, the true import of this vision had just not hit me for so many years...
Every tree had leaves of different colors and shades not just because of their age and size but also because of how the sunlight illuminated them. Some of the leaves were shining with an inherent brilliance as the first rays of the sun gently nudged them… The others although not very far seemed to be still in the cold as they happened to be away from the path of light. Being in the same part of the world, on the same tree, on the same branch, two leaves in such close proximity indeed had very different fates. Was this destiny ? Was this fate ? Was this controlled by the hand of God ?
The only thought that sprang to my mind was "Of course not !!".... It was just chance and randomness that one leaf happened to be in the direct path of light while the other was not... And at some other point in time, the other leaf will get its share of light... in this day or another, in this month or another or perhaps even in this year or another !!!
Things will even out in the long run...
This thought actually led me to draw a parallel with our lives... Ever so often, I ask myself voicing the question of - "Why me ?", "How can life be so unfair ONLY to me?", "How can the other person be so lucky ?"... Every time things have not gone my way and randomness has played its part in keeping me at the losing end of the spectrum (at least in my perception at that point in time)…my heart and my mind have only cried out this one question… And for at least a decade now, I have explored the various possible answers to this question without a satisfactory explanation…. As a theist, an agnostic and sometimes as a deist, I have tried to understand and address this one question. It is now finally as a pantheist or perhaps an atheist that I think I have come close to finding an acceptable answer….
Why should I consider myself any different from the leaf on the tree ? Sometimes, I am farther away from the rays of light and sometimes, I get plenty of sunshine... This is just pure randomness whereby chance is shaping my life... The only difference is that I, being a sentient being, am capable of making my choices, and directing the course of my life... Why is such randomness easy to accept for me when it comes to a leaf but not when it affects me directly ?
And now every time things fall apart and don't go my way, I try and remind myself of the leaf on the tree at far end of the spectrum...
I cross my fingers and bide my time for the light to come my way... :-)
Nice post! Like you said, things always even out. I guess God (read nature if you are an atheist) plays around a little with us. He gives one person +10, another -5 + 15; another +15 - 5...
ReplyDeleteAll same, but totally different. The first person gets only good; the second person gets a little bad, and then much more good than the goodness the first person received; the third person gets much more good than the net good person 1 and 2 received, and then has some bad.
If one really counted their blessings, I guess they would be fine with each of the above three. However, if one were to count case 1 as one good and case 2 & case 3 and one good + one bad; case 2 and case 3 seem unfair... I guess we as humans should learn to really value what we have, and not just count in a superficial way.
Completely true... but things are never so clear are they ??
ReplyDeleteThis is how I have always imagined things to be but then when you see so much wrong happening around you, its difficult to keep holding on to your beliefs without questioning them.. So I guess the metaphor of a tree somehow helped me internalize the concept especially when I view it as a temporal change... It helped me get over the "Why me ?" question (if not completely at least partially)... :-)
I agree it is difficult to remain "believing". And like you said, we aren't smart enough to be able to really count our blessings... I guess that is the only reason we should force ourselves to continue "believing"; we just acknowledge there are forces smarter and stronger than us; and convince ourselves saying those forces ought to know how to ensure justice prevails given they are smarter than us!
ReplyDeleteDon't know if that made sense :P
Well.. you made sense alright... :)
ReplyDeleteAnd it is precisely because simply believing doesn't come so easily to me and is even more difficult to explain such a belief (because you see that it leaves others who simply believe in the wrong things - like untouchablity, inferiority of women, racism, religious superiority, casteism etc etc also right in their own ways, just as i am).
And it because of this that i chose to think of an alternative model guided by pure randomness... This way, it gives me a logic to think forward with and it doesn't guarantee me justice at the end so it takes care of all the bad examples that i have seen... :-)
Well, I am a believer in Einstein's "...subtle is the lord, but he does not play dice..." :)
ReplyDeleteI agree somethings that happen are very hard to digest. I say there is a pattern and a logical reason why they happened (as opposed to randomness), but it is just that we are not smart enough to understand and see them...
I guess we have to agree to disagree :)