On Letting Go
This was a central premise of my absolute-favourite-show-ever, LOST. And it's something I've been mulling over lately, so here goes:
Letting go is forever elusive to most, isn't it? The connotation varies from soul to soul: for the extreme among us, it may even signify giving up on life. Or, perhaps becoming ascetic, forsaking worldly pleasures to roam the earth in an ecstasy of selflessness and contemplation.
But to me, it implies what F Aunty said: admitting that there are many things beyond our control and influence. Admitting that, for all our running and thrashing about, our desperation to make things happen and to make ourselves count, we're ultimately insignificant. As individuals, most of us are insignificant. We toil and sweat, we fight and love, we cry and celebrate and within our tiny, confined existence it all matters so much. But beyond these 4 walls, who cares? How many of us can truly change the world, make a difference, leave an impact?
And so what if we can’t? Just last night, Taimur and I were having a conversation that thrilled me beyond belief. There we were, just chatting away in the evening as we do so often, discussing any manner of topic, from a movie to a friend to just random ideas. And I had a genuine, exhilarating epiphany. I realized that we’re singular creatures, us human beings. We’re bloody marvels of creation: we’re walking, talking, breathing miracles, every last one of us. What other species could be so conscious of the finiteness of its existence, and yet fight so ferociously to stay alive, to do things within that limited time? What other species could use, profit from, nay, exploit the world it lives in till there’s hardly anything left? And still not despair, nor admit defeat? Simply shrug and begin searching anew: for resources, for substitutes, for entire new planets.
What other species can combine the basest sort of cruelty, the most unspeakable sort of horrors with accomplishments that are so grand, so lofty, so unattainable as to be classified impossible or magical? On the one hand, we kill for profit and survival and emotion; on the other, we imagine and inspire and invent with a zeal that could only be divine. For all our fragility, for all our shortcomings we are so tough and so resilient, we fight every second of every day to keep living. No matter the obstacles, we prevail. We could consume everything on Earth while planning an Exodus to an entirely new planet. We probably are, right this minute, at NASA and its twins around the globe. I’m certain it will happen, because we’ve been creating and doing since the dawn of time. We’ve conquered time and space: a century ago a person using the Internet to chat with a mate across the continent would have been called a witch. There is so much folklore, irrespective of culture, where magic means communicating across great distances. And it’s now as commonplace and normal as taking a dump every morning. Maybe it existed once, long ago and was lost to the world, and that’s why there are so many myths that employ such an idea? Everything is a cycle… a pattern we perform and live over and over. Wars, famine, love, loss, birth… over and over.
I asked Taimur, when we were bandying ideas and thoughts back and forth with the sort of enthusiasm one usually generates under the influence: is there anything we can’t do? Because I genuinely believe there isn’t. Nothing is beyond our greedy, grasping, gorgeous desires-eventually.
And that’s the divine element, right there. I don’t want to talk about dogma and rituals, and rules and punishments. I don’t want to talk about a God who’s sitting there stroking his long white paternalistic beard while he scowls down at my every misdemeanor. I don’t want to talk about an angry God, an entity who’s created us all just to sit there and laugh and point; or destroy and gloat.
The God I can believe in, just maybe, is one within us all. Each one of us. It’s in the mind that gives me ideas every day; it’s in the soul that makes me laugh and cry and love and want; it’s in the drive within me that pushes me onward and forward; it’s in the inherent kinship I feel with my species even when parts of it are beyond help and hope. Together, we can be magnificent or malevolent at once. But it’s always a conscious choice. And our choices, our very ability to choose make us divine.
If you can surrender to such a grand, collective ideal, if you can unfetter yourself from mundane demands and expectations that are usually self-imposed, you can take genuine joy and pride in being part of something huge: something that may well endure forever. Hell, who’s to say we humans didn’t land on this planet from another we’d used up? History tells us that intelligent man is a recent phenomenon, one that can’t be traced back before 50,000 years. Perhaps we’ve already been here and done this as a race of beings. And perhaps, once the Earth gives up, we’ll fly away and start over again. In this constancy, in this endurance there is a profound, terrifying, thrilling sort of peace.
I think I can believe in something like this, in this ultimate prevailing of humanity. And somehow, it helps me free myself, and try and enjoy this life. Who knows what lies beyond? Even if it’s complete nothingness, it makes loving this life worthwhile. Because it could well be all we get.
Letting go is forever elusive to most, isn't it? The connotation varies from soul to soul: for the extreme among us, it may even signify giving up on life. Or, perhaps becoming ascetic, forsaking worldly pleasures to roam the earth in an ecstasy of selflessness and contemplation.
But to me, it implies what F Aunty said: admitting that there are many things beyond our control and influence. Admitting that, for all our running and thrashing about, our desperation to make things happen and to make ourselves count, we're ultimately insignificant. As individuals, most of us are insignificant. We toil and sweat, we fight and love, we cry and celebrate and within our tiny, confined existence it all matters so much. But beyond these 4 walls, who cares? How many of us can truly change the world, make a difference, leave an impact?
And so what if we can’t? Just last night, Taimur and I were having a conversation that thrilled me beyond belief. There we were, just chatting away in the evening as we do so often, discussing any manner of topic, from a movie to a friend to just random ideas. And I had a genuine, exhilarating epiphany. I realized that we’re singular creatures, us human beings. We’re bloody marvels of creation: we’re walking, talking, breathing miracles, every last one of us. What other species could be so conscious of the finiteness of its existence, and yet fight so ferociously to stay alive, to do things within that limited time? What other species could use, profit from, nay, exploit the world it lives in till there’s hardly anything left? And still not despair, nor admit defeat? Simply shrug and begin searching anew: for resources, for substitutes, for entire new planets.
What other species can combine the basest sort of cruelty, the most unspeakable sort of horrors with accomplishments that are so grand, so lofty, so unattainable as to be classified impossible or magical? On the one hand, we kill for profit and survival and emotion; on the other, we imagine and inspire and invent with a zeal that could only be divine. For all our fragility, for all our shortcomings we are so tough and so resilient, we fight every second of every day to keep living. No matter the obstacles, we prevail. We could consume everything on Earth while planning an Exodus to an entirely new planet. We probably are, right this minute, at NASA and its twins around the globe. I’m certain it will happen, because we’ve been creating and doing since the dawn of time. We’ve conquered time and space: a century ago a person using the Internet to chat with a mate across the continent would have been called a witch. There is so much folklore, irrespective of culture, where magic means communicating across great distances. And it’s now as commonplace and normal as taking a dump every morning. Maybe it existed once, long ago and was lost to the world, and that’s why there are so many myths that employ such an idea? Everything is a cycle… a pattern we perform and live over and over. Wars, famine, love, loss, birth… over and over.
I asked Taimur, when we were bandying ideas and thoughts back and forth with the sort of enthusiasm one usually generates under the influence: is there anything we can’t do? Because I genuinely believe there isn’t. Nothing is beyond our greedy, grasping, gorgeous desires-eventually.
And that’s the divine element, right there. I don’t want to talk about dogma and rituals, and rules and punishments. I don’t want to talk about a God who’s sitting there stroking his long white paternalistic beard while he scowls down at my every misdemeanor. I don’t want to talk about an angry God, an entity who’s created us all just to sit there and laugh and point; or destroy and gloat.
The God I can believe in, just maybe, is one within us all. Each one of us. It’s in the mind that gives me ideas every day; it’s in the soul that makes me laugh and cry and love and want; it’s in the drive within me that pushes me onward and forward; it’s in the inherent kinship I feel with my species even when parts of it are beyond help and hope. Together, we can be magnificent or malevolent at once. But it’s always a conscious choice. And our choices, our very ability to choose make us divine.
If you can surrender to such a grand, collective ideal, if you can unfetter yourself from mundane demands and expectations that are usually self-imposed, you can take genuine joy and pride in being part of something huge: something that may well endure forever. Hell, who’s to say we humans didn’t land on this planet from another we’d used up? History tells us that intelligent man is a recent phenomenon, one that can’t be traced back before 50,000 years. Perhaps we’ve already been here and done this as a race of beings. And perhaps, once the Earth gives up, we’ll fly away and start over again. In this constancy, in this endurance there is a profound, terrifying, thrilling sort of peace.
I think I can believe in something like this, in this ultimate prevailing of humanity. And somehow, it helps me free myself, and try and enjoy this life. Who knows what lies beyond? Even if it’s complete nothingness, it makes loving this life worthwhile. Because it could well be all we get.