The real tragedy of our age is
the vicissitude of hope. We live in an age where, more and more, the virtue of
hope is deemed unnecessary and being subtly murdered. It is the calamity of our
time that, that which is the great motivator of life and civilisation has been
reduced to a passing emotion. Hope, which breaks us from the shackles of
mediocrity, this great passion which forges us on, this deep breadth of mankind,
has been strategically eliminated out of the necessary sequence of growth. I
mourn the demise of hope.
Let’s start from a very familiar discussion:
What is it for instance, that would
forge us to care for our environment or to be passionate about life? The debate
about global warming is as critical as that of abortion; and just like abortion,
the experience of climatic change is as vivid an experience, as it is denied. The
will power to do what we are meant to do to correct a negative anomaly seem to
be lacking, we ignore the moral discipline needed to avert an ultimate climatic
calamity, just as we do not own up to
the consequence of our actions in bed, by creating havoc for the next
generation when we kill the unborn. The inertia preventing us from powering down
is that stopping us from zipping us. But that is not the horror – after all, we
are all a society of sinners- the horror
is in the scepticism of reality, it is in the justification of wrong, and that
is what I call despair, the death of hope?
We see no potential for a journey forth, that is why we lack the
charisma to journey through our actions. Materialism has slipped into our
cerebrum and we justify our ‘throw away ‘mannerism with every fallacious
argument. Another word for caring for
our environment is rightly referred to as Sustainability, which is, saving
something for the future, thereby averting an insufficiency for the next
generation.
But we say: what is the need of saving
for posterity? Why should I be stopped from making an immediate gain right
here, and now? What, for instance, have I got to lose by taking a few pills and
getting things straight rather than having an unwanted child lock up my
progress and destiny? Or why should I care for the habitat of my children’s
children since when I am gone I am gone?
No, my friend, you are not gone!
The truth is, life is a continuum, and death is not an escape. Lay your bed
well so that you can lie peacefully on it. Charity begins at home. When we
treat our earthly home shabbily what shall we say across the Bridge? And over there
is the reality of this Vain Shadow; and over there is right here! We kill and
get rid of anything that would give us paranoia about hope, as such; we
strangle the life out of an afterlife. The virus of despair is a cankerworm
that has eaten deep and subtly into every arena of our age. What happens to you
when you are gone is very dependent on how passionate you are about posterity. ‘E s’a ‘ye‘re o ‘(Threat the world
benevolently).
When there is no hope, time is
reduced to a strange ephemerality and confined into an awkward space, thus
humanity is seen as nothing but a materialistic phantom. She becomes more and
more narcistic. She corrodes everything, and nothing lasts neither anymore nor
forevermore in her eyes. She turns all antiques into fiscal aggrandisement and
monetizes everything into the vapour of vanity. She sees herself as the
ultimate object for service and whatever does not serve her appetite for
immediate gain is fatally eliminated. Man becomes a Lord unto himself,
relationship is weakened the more, family life is crushed and posterity becomes
more and more devoid of a moral compass and is bereft of an integral leadership
needed to satisfy his deepest longings. Man loses faith because he breaks up
with hope; he has mortgaged time and space for the porridge of immediate
mammonistic gratification.
When we break with hope, when
this continuum is snapped, posterity suffers, and when posterity does suffer,
no one would actually acquire that complete rest in which everyone craves. But
when we hope, whether we work or rest, we adopt mercy as our kin. Think about
it. Not until moments become memory and memory becomes reality and everyone
live in spirit and truth, we shall always have lies undermining the
truthfulness of hope and thus shall true freedom and liberation be locked up
under the shackles of despair.
If you have ever had the rare privilege
of losing a really loved one, you’ll realise this point better. This transport
into another realm, the voice that secretly tells you it couldn’t be the end,
the longings, the desires, and the serenity, the enigma of continuum which
produces a radiant calm and an aura of awe. But then the powers-that-be snap
this reverent experience with the noise and commotion of time. I pray we grasp
the meaning of life at this point of loss and let not go of it, because therein
is freedom. And if you are like me who twitch at the thought of physical death
or dread the idea of losing a loved one, I’ve got a far better solution: Fix
your gaze to the cross of Christ, there you shall find the source of the
journey forth. Just look and keep on looking. Something tells you to venture
deeper into this continuum but you quickly find an alibi in a lie that says the
link is forever snapped. Blessed are those who mourn. Christ is risen from the
dead!
Epilogue:
This piece concludes The Essay
about the Journey Forth but the
experience of the journey forth itself continues in you and in me, it is an inexhaustible
vista. That is what has been opened forth for us in the celebration of this day:
Easter.
And I must say it is a pure coincidence
that the final piece of my essay falls on Easter day, I never planned it as
such. This day summarises all I have ever wanted to say and all I am yet to
say.
The journey of this write-up is in
itself a parable which I shall continue to decipher its meaning and reason with
time. A few weeks back just before lent began, I felt a deep urge to put forth
my experience as I never dared in public. It was not such a big sacrifice
writing all these voluminous scripts, for I love writing, and I confess that I
have gained so much from the write-up myself, probably more than anyone who would
be patient enough to read anything of these ‘baggadashes’.
What costs me is having to put
down some issues about me, both around my ideas and within my experience and
not knowing how it would be perceived, yet the fact of doing so has only given
me an impetus to be more daring. It has lightened me and I
am literarily filled with a greater momentum to travel farther than I have
done. Thank you for reading. Wishing you a happy Easter, the source and summit
of our journey forth.
