LIFE IN NUTSHELL

Marcus Aurelius once said, “it’s not death that we should fear, we should fear never beginning to live.” When we die, our life line does this (Figure 1). When we are alive our life line does this (Figure 2). 

 Figure 1. Straight Line, an image of things not moving ahead. You are dead.

Figure 2. Image of a zigzag line exhibiting your movement. You are living.

Notice how that connects with our real experience of life. Life is full of ups and downs, it means you are alive. Twists and turns, love and loss, happiness and sadness, success and failure. We experience extreme highs, peaks and summits. And at the same time experience the troughs, the lows and submit. Life is kind of like one big crazy roller coaster. Starts slowly, fill you with anticipation and curiosity, takes you up and then sends you flying down only to rise up quickly, again. We laugh until it hurts, we cry inside a little, experience a few moments where we want it to stop and hope it’s all over, but it just keeps going (Figure 2). 

We somehow think that success is linear, an upward line; there is literally no case study for that. Everyone we admire has ups and downs. Your body mostly replaces itself every seven to fifteen years. The organs that work the hardest have the fastest changeover. You get a whole new skin every two to four weeks. Your red blood cells last less than half a year. And your liver renews itself at least once every couple of years. 

The universe is always changing, we are always changing, but we want to remain the same. We settle for security, not recognizing that flat life line means we are dead. Real life is ups and downs (Figure 2, zigzag lines), death looks like this (Figure 1, a straight line). Every time I see that (Figure 1) I remind myself this is (Figure 2, zigzag line) living, (image of straight line, Figure 1) this isn’t. In the journey of life, we pass pleasure and pain. There will be sunshine and rain, there will be loss and gain. But we must learn to move forward again and again. Don’t judge the moment. Don’t try to hang on, because it will keep pushing you forward. 

And remember, this morning if you are healthy you are happier than one million people that will not survive this week. If there is food in your fridge, shoes on your feet, clothes on your body, a bed to sleep on and a roof over your head, you are richer than seventy five percent of people in the world. And if you have bank account, money in your wallet, or a purse, or coins in a jar, you are in the top eight percent of the world’s wealthiest. We cannot avoid the ups and downs, but we can change the way we see them. Because as Wayne Dyer said, “when we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.”

And take this from me (Figure 3), I believe this very strongly. But I fear nothing including the deadly death. I have the guts to say you are wrong if you are and I believe in myself the way you believe.

Figure 3. Image of a Don, who believes whatever is said in the Sarah Snow narrative.

CONFUSED, PERPLEXED AND BEFUDDLED ARE ALL SYNONYMS

In rich English language there is an idiom by the phrase “at sixes and sevens” and it is used to express the confused state of a person, office, institution, organizations, groups, etc. It also means that some things are not in order or things are in disarray. Sometimes I get a feeling that I am too confused. But I hope it is not the case of being at sixes and sevens. I can decide few things and I can stop or start few things. There are many minds in one body. One mind tries to do things while the other tries to stop or give new ideas. At times, it is the content of the traditional song Tshering Changmey Tsela, “I could have gone looking for Dharma if I did not have my old parents” and “it is for the kids that I am not looking towards the hermitages. For a humanely soul, the kids are priority is what I have seen and what exactly is happening with an individual like me too.

Figure 1. Confused. What more?

Sometimes, the concept of “life is short make the best out of it” come into your mind but it is even unfair for you to follow that since you have stakeholders who are struggling but have played a vital role in your life as you grow and those who are growing with lots of hope. Being mindful of all these small but important things is vital too. So, “leaving your people you cannot move away in search of peace” applicable phrase from the old song Tshering Changmey Tsela. Thus, you cannot get out of the net of Samsara even if you are fully aware and even if that’s doable. So, be there.

Losing your partner at this age is confusing. I am realizing that my wife left me at the wrong time. All the time, it is company that you need at home and places you go. Once your partner is not around that also after so many years of togetherness, it is devastating. For quite a number of days and weeks you would be waiting for her calls from home when you are on long distance duty and long days travels. You miss her a lot for the first one year and it goes on. It is at this juncture that you feel like having a replacement, but unfortunate, it is not like replacing a torn shoe or an old shirt with new one. There are complex situations. That you cannot get someone like your late wife is confirmed but it is also fixed that the new one will have her share of demands like having kids, house to live, a good car to drive and many more. The question here is “are you prepared for all such things at this time?” Can you manage the new cycle of visible Samsara? This situation is called luan qi ba zao in Chinese, meaning messy and confusing. Had she left me a bit later, it could have been easier for me to handle the situation. It is not too good to mention this, but I must confess that sometimes even the physical demand is fixing you up😂😂😂. It is wrong to lose a partner at this age and you realize that all these confusions have come out of her absence. I just wish that there are no physical demands, no mental stress, no mind to recall things. But complex humans have complex arrangement in the brain. Thus, there is no hope that things will get better in the mind although you work very hard to change your things post the disastrous demise of your partner. 

I see a sixty-year-old man holding a lady whose age is less than half his. I see many veterans having arm candies at teens and these worldly things sometimes give you a feeling “I am just in forties, why can’t I have one like them.” But at what cost? It's not money, not wealth but your happiness and peace. Will the partner carry me till the end? What if the same thing happen to her like the first one? Will she mind from inside her heart and soul if I land up in troubles? Or is it for killing the time that she is seeking my company or is it that she is wanting some luxuries that I cannot provide? Lots of questions which may have answers but undesirable ones. And these things thoroughly confuse me. Makes me lost. Unsure. Puzzled. Baffled.

Further, as it must, we have people in between who want to suggest things and put you in an al tres y al cuatro situation, the Chilean expression for a person thoroughly confused by direct or indirect advises from various seniors and peers with mostly good intents but which might lead to no where. Their advice can be good as well as bad. Some of my good friends want me to have a partner who is soft, sober and kind so that I can face aging (together with her), the sure thing that's happening while another set of my very good friends think I should not go for another unison since I am already through more than half of my total living hours😂😂😂. In this type of scenario, it is hard to move further as I am unable to see the road ahead triggered by confusions. Many a times you feel it necessary to have a company but quite often you get a feeling of not needing one, clearly indicating the vast state of my confusion.

I am into the second year without a partner and I have learned lessons not many have learnt. Being a simple and straight forward individual, it never occurred to me that such things will cross my life. But it did and gave me a message for life. When your good partner is gone, it is like losing half of yourself. Everything embraces shambles. The house is in complete chaos. Children are scattered. No one can do much to support you. They don't owe you much.  They have their own struggles. You have to face your own situations. The best way is to get rid of confusion if that's possible but you can't. You stay confused.

You become aloof and do not want to hear much from others. The situation is sitta u sitta, tnax which in Maltese language means aloof and has no idea what’s going on. I but hope that at least I know what’s happening. My children wanted to study in a school very far away from me, I agreed. They do not want me to see with another partner, agreed. They want to be with their maternal grand parents and cousins, agreed. Everything agreed. I am told they are happy. If they are happy I am happy. After all, they are the only ones that matter to me. I hope that they realize what they must do. A dad can provide whatever they want but cannot quite force them what to do. The only thing that I am not confused with is to provide my girls what they want and reach them wherever they want to go. Otherwise, the situation is like, confused at what to do, lost at where to do, undecided at how to do and unsure at when to do. A hell lot of confusions.

The easiest thing in the world is eating, defecating and drinking and everyone can do these without much ado. But for me the situation is different. I get easily confused. It is like "what am I doing?" Where do I start again? How do I do it once more. Would it benefit me and my people. Baffled. THOROUGH CONFUSION.

WHOSE RESPONSIBILITY IS IT?

I can’t fix someone for my problems. Thus, it must be me and my stakeholders including my late wife for such a situation – no difference between right and wrong. Everyone has a situation. Everyone has problem but not like mine. Whatever it is, I must own the mistake, I must.

I never share my problem with anyone and I will never do it. I don't want them to be solved by others. Even if I have my leg hanging out of a cut I will not share my problem. But writing in this blog relieves me of my stress and I am sure not many will come and see me here. So, I assume that I am free.

THOROUGHLY CONFUSED

Disclaimer

This is my personal thought and anything written here is not intended to harm or promote people or things mentioned here. No one is authorized to use the content of this blog for either personal or private purpose. People mentioned here in are fictitious characters and any resemblance to anyone with some characters or more are purely coincidence.