Today I sat on a swing in the park and swung away to my heart's content. And I suspect I enjoyed it way more than my two year old cousin. For those brief moments I had not the smallest worry. The burdens of life gave way to a lightness I have not felt in years. I stopped. I breathed. I turned my face up to the breeze. Back and forth, back and forth. Life is full of similar oscillations. Secure to stranded, elated to morose, confident to terrified. There is never enough time to categorize life as good or bad amidst this constant interplay of ravaging extremes. But today, in these rare moments of stillness I wondered what is it that makes one brave the downs and seek the ups of life.
What makes one pray to an unknown God? What makes one read astrology? What makes one search for the elusive silver lining to every cloud? It could be need. It could be discontent. Or even greed. I like to think it is faith.
It's funny how faith works. Oftentimes it is difficult for the rational mind to grasp faith as a concept. For it can seem rather blind, baseless and unscientific. The rational mind understands effort and result and expects them to be proportional to each other. It cannot settle for an aggregate but non-chronological reciprocity between effort and result. Neither can it understand belief without proof, or patience without progress. Rational as I claim to be, I believe effort and faith feed into each other. Faith induces effort even when the fruit is not in sight or within reach. Unrelenting hard work in turn serves to augment the very faith that one is constantly inching towards the fruit.
In principle, one could have faith in anything- in oneself, in instinct, in justice, in the ultimate reign of goodness, in the immutable laws of nature, in Time, in God. I think it is something, maybe the only thing, that protects our irrevocable right to dream, our sometimes irrational optimism, and our unjustifiable claim to lofty goals and ideals. It is what keeps the innocence in us from escaping.
Back and forth, back and forth, life will go on. I know. But right now, there is a breeze in my hair. The grass is young and green. The moon is high and blue. The world is picturesque. The idealist lives on...
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6 comments:
In defence of the faithless,
"...
By now you must recognize that rational
truth is unbearable and impossible to live by
and that everything possible and bearable is,
of necessity, a logical mess incorporating lies as well
as contradictory truths. And yet you just go along, making phone
calls, hanging curtains, letting the slanting sun before twilight
shift your thoughts,
riding the subway, sweeping the hallway,
and you watch TV, don’t you, and go to the bank, eat
ice cream, call the cable guy, why do you do it
when you are so keenly aware of the impossibility
of your goals given the obdurate
resistance of such material? Try
to answer as completely as possible; time."
-- From Please Answer All Three Of The Following Essay Questions by
Jennifer Michael Hecht {Emphasis mine}
Faith in any form, as is obvious to most of us by now, is a crutch. It is soul-crushing to live without any sort of faith. Without being hopeful, without being optimistic, without wanting any indications of progress. But, IMHO, it is better to live that way than succumbing to delusion.
Like a certain Naseem Taleb would tell us, maybe the whole point of all this is to learn to not be a sucker.
PS: Maybe it is possible to dream and work towards that dream without the need for thinking about faith? Even if it's faith in oneself.
this post is so not in line with the blog's tone.. but hey... change is good.. and this one is refreshing :)
musafir: reluctantly agree. when i am able to articulate my thoughts will respond :)
FAITH is more like the tiny LAMP in the sea of darkness the clitch here like all natural courses and effects , is - YOU are responsible to 'protect' and 'enlighten' your Lamp , While the swift winds of despair are floating all around !
moments like these exist to become the source of positive fuel for the rest of life.
faith in oneself is the vital clue..to whatever one is searching for.Its difficult to express what it really means ..
nice post and am here after ages
how are you?
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