Recall: Life’s Nobility

June 23, 2006

Growing old with life is indeed a never ending beginning. The age of the person cannot conceal the age of life itself. There are always unexpected beginnings to be encountered along the way.

Opportunities come and go and disappointments can cripple the individuality of the person. There are a lot of ideologies offered by the universe itself. The principles in life coupled with the laws of human dominate the perspective and the choice of man to live life. Yet no one can say that what a person does is right or wrong nor just or unjust. Neither one can adjudge a person of not performing his duties well for the simple reason that he fell asleep right on his office table.

Living life, I agree is but a continuing struggle of survival. Darwin is correct in formulating his theory of survival of the fittest and is correct in saying that the world is dominated only by two classes of man namely: the strong and the weak. The world is indeed designed for those who are born to rule and to be ruled. Negation can never be absent in life’s portrait. There is always the attributes of the opposites. Without it, it is just like staring at a dull canvass. I, myself would wish to stress that life is but a confusion. I am not even sure if what I meant was a confusion of ideas, ideologies, laws and even ethics. I do at my age right now still confused about life. It gave me a lot of things to think about; Things to be afraid of like to be confronted in situations that are so long ago interrupted; to be afraid in situations where my capacities and limitations are tested; to be afraid of committing mistakes that would degrade me beyond bearing. I even most of the time contradict myself about the standards I set with what I really wish to do. I even mistook right for just and wrong for unjust. I even confuse the beating of my heart with the nerve endings of my mind.

Life’s complexities I believe are but the oversimplification of things. It is but a result of man’s pride, discontentment and greed that we mistook as a simple ambition for a brighter morrow and a compensation for a hard day’s work. It is always what Karl Marx wanted to convey all along: capitalism over socialism but communism over capitalism. The bourgeoisie can never be contented of a penny profit but the proletariat is contented with a piece of bread. If only the semantic model can held this situation for so long a time then there will never be conflict. That is, given that the bourgeoisie shall continuously provide the proletariat single bread for a day’s labor. What I wish to lay down is the two sides of the story. The hard day’s labor of a proletariat for a piece of bread is but a total façade of an inhumane deprivation of life’s opportunities and justification.

The confusion that I have for myself is the same confusion I have when I got to open my eyes and see the world around me turning upside down. The political system is at its stake right now and the economic depression is unstoppable. With this I got to realize some things that somehow justifies and clarifies some hazy thoughts about life. I realized that the world is indeed round, not because it was circumnavigated by Magellan but because all things in this life follow a common pattern which is a cycle. Man did this before; he does it now and probably will do it tomorrow. This is what we called as Historical Materialism. I also realized that not all the good things a person does is just nor are all mistakes and wrong unjust. I realized that life is a matter of believing that what we do is right and no matter how a material can be immaterial, so long as we believe that it is relevant, it will be relevant. I even realized the value of deceit (I don’t force somebody to agree with me on this). It is true that deception is necessary to make things possible (sounds bad but it’s true at least maybe for me). If we are too strict in setting our too good to be true standards in life then nothing will happen to us.

Life, as I said a while ago as quoted by Darwin is but the survival of the fittest. Of course I say this as reality being my basis. I remember my mother told me that we can always achieve things without deceiving, but I disagree because man is always looking at man as a prey. Everybody is eating up each other and without the skill of deceit; it will be so hard to become a wise predator. This may contradict your ethical standards but somehow I know you will agree with me on this. Life is just a matter of faith; a matter of believing an illusion as real. It is a matter of transcribing a fairy tale into a true to life story. Life is always designed to challenge the degree of personality man has. It is designed like an on-line computer game that wishes to defeat a weakling enemy.

Life is always a matter of knowing your self worth and self value. The weakest and the most coward man is he who does not know what he wanted in his entire lifetime and who doesn’t know how to fight for what he believe as right. The most courageous man is he who is never afraid to violate the rules and to commit mistakes just to prove a point in life. A courageous man is he who knows to adjust the spectrum of life’s lenses; he who can fail a major exam without having regrets after; he who can laugh after a heartbreak and he who knows how to let go of valued things for so long without feeling sorry about it.

The human mind, my mother once told me in one of her letters is so powerful that it can program the human emotions. It can choose to divert pain into something lesser that is bearable. However, I cannot fully agree with this. Though our minds are programmers, but there are just things in this life that are beyond our control despite the fact that we ourselves created them. Our mind may be able to make us forget the pain but it can never be permanent. Pains, once felt can never be erased. Even time is not capable of healing the wounds caused by pain, Even valium. Time would past for years but the pain remains to be a pain. Just like happiness, when felt can never be forgotten. Maybe this is a justification of us being humans. This is also a part of life’s contradictions. We suffer from pain to fully realize the essence of happiness and we experience happiness to know how to avoid pain. It is just like a game of hide and seek where pain seeks for happiness and happiness hides from pain.

Man himself is but a manifestation of life’s intricacies. He can treat himself for a good lunch in an hour and can hurt himself in a second. Nonetheless, the contradictions brought about the ageless of life also bring forth a lot of beauties that are yet to be explored and appreciated. Where there is the transparency of pain, happiness is buried deep within. It is still man who is left for man. It is still ourselves who is liable to us. Let us always remember that we are endowed with self will. Nobody forces us to do what we are doing right now (though exemption is always on the line). We are given choices to choose from. We may never achieve what we really want to achieve but let us still carry on because life is never always to be what we only wanted. It is also depriving our wants for the sake of other’s needs. This is the essence of life. Having to do things which we think we could not do; exerting efforts for others which we thought we couldn’t bear. It is just like believing that there is life after death. Life never ends where death begins. Remember: LIFE IS NOT AGING.

P.S. Therefore, man should not be waiting for life to shape its future and in having to decide for a better change, because man is growing old with life but life never grows old with man.