Here is an article out of my journal. It might be depressing and seem bad at places. I am not saying it is all the truth. I am talking about a fear that might come over every and any man. I am experiencing it so that I can understand it, whether I believe it or not. It is long. But it is a thought. An experience. And when you experience it time somehow seems to work a bit different.
Here it comes again- the same that has tortured me before,the thing that seems to grow through the bars of my prison like a thorn bush when I feel encaged. So here it comes. What is the point? What is the reason? What is the use? Of anything. Of everything. Of existence of life in this world and this planet in this universe. Of being. What is the point and right for anything to be? What is the point of learning and growing? Of course that is what we should do, and even want to do. But why? Why should we try to make this world better? Why do we need to make the world better? Just to live? So that we can live in good? Just try and struggle to live, when we have no reason to stay away from death? What do we then, when we have learned how to survive? For it is true that we learn how to survive.
If not, if we had just kept struggling to survive, like in the olden days, creating thoughts, stories and feelings along the way, then all would be fine. But somewhere, somehow we learned and will learn again how to survive. And we either get lost in working our wretched ways to survive or we sit there looking for a purpose. What is our purpose? To choose between good and bad? So we go to heaven and be happy forever or we go to hell and be tortured forever? Tortured forever? Why? Why should anyone be tortured forever? Even if they deserve it, how can anyone do that to them? Why can they not be simply finished? So that they are no longer in existence. What is the point of torturing anyone for eternity when they need not exist at all? And those in heaven? What of them? Will they just sit around doing things they want? No. So we will live together in love, peace, unity, caring for eachother? Yes that will be worth something but we must have something to do! Won't heaven be a place where we do something? Where we all strive to accomplish some great work, mission or feat? But if there is such a thing as Nothingness at all and if this world and life and the planets and universe were made into the Nothingness, made into nothing at all then how can there be any any reason, for doing anything? If there is a Nothing than how can there ever be a need or reason, except those that we create? There cannot. If there is Nothing there is no reason. And if. And if there is no reason then We will die. We will not be able to exist anymore. If there is no reason we will die. We will not matter. It will not matter what we do or don't do. It will not matter where we go, what we say, how we act. It will not matter whether we live or die. It will all be toil. If there is no reason here and nothing after death and we are trapped in a horrible existence where we can't live and we will just end if we die. If there is no reason here and nothing after death than despair, for that is something that no man can face.
Stand there and think of it. What point is there for you to live? To help others? Why? They can have good lives? What for, if nothing they do will matter and they will go on to end as if they never existed anyway? No point. But is something you can not face. That there is no reason at all. That we just are, for wasting away. And so that is why, when this terrible feeling, that we are only here for wasting away, for nothing, when that feeling grows through the bars of our prison like thorns, brittle, truthful, harsh, careless thorns, that tear apart the human heart, we start twisting and turning in bitter desperation that there is no point, no reason, for anything.
But if, although it seems impossible, this world is at it appears. As a child sees it, Whole, and complete, with many, many layers, of which there endless types, and a Nothingness doesn't exist somehow then this world is perfect. It is comfortable. It is where we belong. To you now, with the education you have had, with the way you have settled on thinking it will seem almost definite that it all did come from nothing. Nothing and God. That is how your is set. The most obvious explanation is that there is nothing. But stop. Think of the other explanation. That the world is as it appears. How it is when you look out the window. How it is when you look up at the skies. With many mysteries and layers and paths and twinings. What if the world is like this. It has a reason, and it goes on functioning with some unknown cause labelling it at all corners. And inside itself there are hundreds and hundreds of layers. Of physical workings, of dreams, of mental power, of magic, of feelings, of jobs, of painting, of designs, of time of all things inside this world itself, vast, gigantic, eternal. If you think about it than actually this is the explanation we should be faithful to. We should be trusting in what we see, like we do in everything else, right? But somehow in the process of this Scientific Education or something our mindset was changed to one that would believe in Nothingness. But if the world is as it appears then Man can survive, because the world is, to innocent eyes, a beautiful place.
Today perhaps I am not encaged, maybe I do not feel the prison today. But maybe it is always there. The cage of time, life, pointlessness, uselessness. But in all of life, in history, there is something which seems to matter. In this torrent of pointlessness there is something to which we cling onto because somehow it is our only way to exist and to believe in anything. It is creation. Stories told, stories happened, dreams created, dreams believed in, feelings, bonds, things built, memories created. All of that is somehow for a cause. And that is what makes living worth anything. The feelings, the actions, the stories of truth. The worlds that we lived in. For sometimes it seems that those things which are the least real are the things most worth believing in. Perhaps it is because those things, those worlds do seem to have a purpose. They always have a purpose and the pointlessness of this Earth can have no effect on those worlds. Maybe my only hope left is that the things that make those worlds are real. That this world really is like that. Maybe it is my greatest fear is that there is no world like that. That this is all there is. It is my only hope left that there must be more. More than this. This cage of time, life, pointlessness and uselessness. And what is most terrifying is that everywhere you look , all you see is more of this same world in the same sick cage. Of everyone living as though this IS all there is. As though there is nothing more and no need for anything more than this.
When you are in your own world you begin to believe in a world like that, like the stories. Deep, fantastic, true, real. You see it. The world actually begins to seem like that. And you begin to walk around in a world that really is like that. Like the stories, the dreams. You believe in the stories and you believe that God loves them too. You believe that they are real and God is in them too. You do not feel that God would be angry for not believing only in his world. You do not feel condemned to the pointlessness. For he created all worlds. He loves those worlds too. He loves all worlds. And he is present in them all. He is there in all. And when you believe that God is in the beautiful world that you want to believe in than you are happy. You know that God is also a happy beautiful thing, and does not want to trap you do darkness and sin. And that is what saves you. Is is wrong to imagine a world like that? For that is what I love. And that is what I believe in. And when I think those thoughts, when I stand up for the world I believe in, I feel right. Happy. I do not feel the fear of being wrong. I do not feel guilty. I feel brave, honest, good. For when there is no more guilt or fear you know God is with you and has also accepted you. I feel right. So believe in that world, the true world, and let God be in that world and love that world too because I know that that feeling of being good and being right is the truest feeling and greatest thing of life. For in that world somehow there is a reason. A wonderful reason. Instead of a world which is reasonless because of nothing, there is something because of all the little reasons that come together that make a wonderful reason to live, to discover, grow, learn, and love. So believe in those stories and dreams and feelings because you know that somehow, some way, the reasonlessness is not all there is! Believe in it because it is the truest and realest thing and the most beautiful thing there is and always will be on this Earth. And believe in it because you will have to believe in every single beautiful thing left, no matter how cursed it seems, to keep this Earth from becoming a monochrome chaos of pointlessness in which people are doing so many millions of different kinds of pointless things with no real meaning.
I don't even know if it is possible for man to know something that is not real, not really there. How can we imagine something which does not somehow exist? So I say, Believe in all of it. Everything that is beautiful. For someday it will be worth it. Someday I know we will see the beautiful world full of all the things we love and care for.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Mr.Nobody
This is a short story that I wrote a while ago. Even before the date that I have written, which is only when it was typed into the computer. But bits of the ideas that are in the story keep coming back to me. Like what would the different feelings be in the most gloomy man on earth. And the society which lived in the city might have been interesting as well.
Mr. Nobody 17-1-2005
Once there was a city. The gloomiest city that ever existed. Thick smoke came out of it giving off a repulsive stench. So thick was the hate in the air that it actually stifled your breath, and everyone who lived there had contorted faces, with wrinkles that stuck from frowning too long.
Now, down the darkest road, in the darkest square, in the darkest house, near the heart of the black city, where no sunlight could ever delve, lived a stooped old man, with red eyes and a sharp stick. He had a limp in one leg, though it had never been injured and his pupils were black, and terrible. Like two black abysses, with no texture at all and yet somehow grainy. This man was Mr. Nobody.
He was poor, and mean. He was the meanest man to exist. Nobody cared for Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody was always irritated, angry, despairing and wanting revenge. But his hate had been so strong that it buried the reason for itself. He did nothing until his home was covered in dirt and grit and rotting wood and broken bottles and the water that came through the tap was like black slush. This was when he finally had to work to survive. But he would not work ‘And’ he thought to himself, ‘no one would give me a job if I was dying on the streets.’ So he began to steal, giving himself the lying excuse, “They deserve to be stolen from. They should treat me properly.” but his worst excuse was, “I have no other way of living.” and that is what he tried to believe, to shield the guilt which grew heavier and heavier, for although he thought he was sending the guilt away he was actually sending the opposite direction- his heart. And before he knew it he had been stealing for ages when he’d thought he had just begun.He did not remember any family, except in drunken hazes when his wife’s death served an excuse for drinking, but always he knew that someone had died. Though it seemed impossible that he had ever loved anyone, he hated that person for dying, though he knew not why.
Mr. Nobody’s point of view was that that everyone hated him and everyone else’s view was that he hated them. And everyone’s response was this word spit out dirt from the mouth, ‘Fine!’ The truth was that he had become a little mean while mourning for his now forgotten wife and the people became mean to him, and they started getting into fights about if the death of the relative had been because of not a sickness but that someone had poisoned her food. This made Mr. Nobody angry and slowly, slowly, for one reason or the next the hate had become stronger and stronger until this day.
The same things had happened to Mr. Invisible and Mrs. Nowhere.
Now, in this city, which in fact was called Bliss, everything and everybody were exactly opposite to their name. So, of course, the revered judges, Mr. Wise, Mr. Smart, Mr. Understanding, and Mrs. Just, were none of these things, which caused havoc and more hate everywhere. In fact there was no one nice in the whole city . . .except one. This man was known as Mr. Terribly Unsensible Meanie. Mr. Terribly Unsensible Meanie (Mr. TUM for short, and teased because of it,) was great, wise and very kind. But everyone else cared more for people’s awe then their own personalities and so they all had wonderful names and terrible personalities, and judged Mr. TUM the easiest, yet most foolish way possible- his name.
Now, Mr. TUM had had run away from the city long ago when he was young and had the sense to do so before he became mad at everything that was in that city. The day he came back home and saw that nothing had changed at all he realized he should not have run away. He realized that no one else was going to save the city for him. So he started his mission with something which secretly he had wanted to do for many, many years. He disguised himself as a merchant and went to Mr. Nobody’s house. He knocked. Mr. Nobody opened the door. Just as he started shouting about stupid merchants trying to tease his poverty with their fake riches, Mr. TUM began. “I know how you feel. Though you may not. You feel as though your heart has shriveled into a black thorny sour rotten fruit. But you have forgotten. You have forgotten everything. You have even forgotten how to love! Do you want me to tell you the story of yourself? Do you want to hear the truth?”
For the first time the old man stayed silent and forgot his duty to hate. Because for some reason the word Love tasted sweet in his mouth. Sweeter than anything he had tasted for years. But he would not answer. So, Mr. TUM continued.
“Love is the only thing worth knowing, worth having. Why do Mr. Invisible and Mrs. Nowhere lie and threaten. Because they miss true Love. This city used to be filled with beautiful gardens and flowing fountains. There was bright sunshine everywhere. But now the whole city is in ruins because there is no Love. This is because once long ago a man lost his wife. His Love. His grief spread through the city which hardened to anger, when they told him that his son had poisoned his mother. He knew that his son hadn’t done it but to remove the anger and shame he gave his son a terrible name and beat the son until the son was forced to run from his home. The hate became so dense that it is breathed in from the air. That man’s wife took the whole city’s love with her. She was the last one loved. Now if that one man took the whole city’s love, then I think that he and his son can weave back into the city, can’t we, my father?”
The old man (for by now he really was an old man) stared at the man before him and stepped back, his bloodshot eyes frozen, his hunched form losing all strength as he collapsed over the other man’s shoulders. And Mr.Tum embraced his father with true love for the first time in forty years. The old man clung to his son as the first pure beautiful tears leaked from his eyes and he sobbed as you do when you know that it will be all right.
“Yes we can . . . and we will my son. We will,” he said in his old croaking voice which sounded almost more beautiful to the son than what the words meant to him. Now, in all of that darkness and dust and hate and tears they had a promise to the city that they said they would fulfil.
And so they did.
By P.L. Rao
Once there was a city. The gloomiest city that ever existed. Thick smoke came out of it giving off a repulsive stench. So thick was the hate in the air that it actually stifled your breath, and everyone who lived there had contorted faces, with wrinkles that stuck from frowning too long.
Now, down the darkest road, in the darkest square, in the darkest house, near the heart of the black city, where no sunlight could ever delve, lived a stooped old man, with red eyes and a sharp stick. He had a limp in one leg, though it had never been injured and his pupils were black, and terrible. Like two black abysses, with no texture at all and yet somehow grainy. This man was Mr. Nobody.
He was poor, and mean. He was the meanest man to exist. Nobody cared for Mr. Nobody. Mr. Nobody was always irritated, angry, despairing and wanting revenge. But his hate had been so strong that it buried the reason for itself. He did nothing until his home was covered in dirt and grit and rotting wood and broken bottles and the water that came through the tap was like black slush. This was when he finally had to work to survive. But he would not work ‘And’ he thought to himself, ‘no one would give me a job if I was dying on the streets.’ So he began to steal, giving himself the lying excuse, “They deserve to be stolen from. They should treat me properly.” but his worst excuse was, “I have no other way of living.” and that is what he tried to believe, to shield the guilt which grew heavier and heavier, for although he thought he was sending the guilt away he was actually sending the opposite direction- his heart. And before he knew it he had been stealing for ages when he’d thought he had just begun.He did not remember any family, except in drunken hazes when his wife’s death served an excuse for drinking, but always he knew that someone had died. Though it seemed impossible that he had ever loved anyone, he hated that person for dying, though he knew not why.
Mr. Nobody’s point of view was that that everyone hated him and everyone else’s view was that he hated them. And everyone’s response was this word spit out dirt from the mouth, ‘Fine!’ The truth was that he had become a little mean while mourning for his now forgotten wife and the people became mean to him, and they started getting into fights about if the death of the relative had been because of not a sickness but that someone had poisoned her food. This made Mr. Nobody angry and slowly, slowly, for one reason or the next the hate had become stronger and stronger until this day.
The same things had happened to Mr. Invisible and Mrs. Nowhere.
Now, in this city, which in fact was called Bliss, everything and everybody were exactly opposite to their name. So, of course, the revered judges, Mr. Wise, Mr. Smart, Mr. Understanding, and Mrs. Just, were none of these things, which caused havoc and more hate everywhere. In fact there was no one nice in the whole city . . .except one. This man was known as Mr. Terribly Unsensible Meanie. Mr. Terribly Unsensible Meanie (Mr. TUM for short, and teased because of it,) was great, wise and very kind. But everyone else cared more for people’s awe then their own personalities and so they all had wonderful names and terrible personalities, and judged Mr. TUM the easiest, yet most foolish way possible- his name.
Now, Mr. TUM had had run away from the city long ago when he was young and had the sense to do so before he became mad at everything that was in that city. The day he came back home and saw that nothing had changed at all he realized he should not have run away. He realized that no one else was going to save the city for him. So he started his mission with something which secretly he had wanted to do for many, many years. He disguised himself as a merchant and went to Mr. Nobody’s house. He knocked. Mr. Nobody opened the door. Just as he started shouting about stupid merchants trying to tease his poverty with their fake riches, Mr. TUM began. “I know how you feel. Though you may not. You feel as though your heart has shriveled into a black thorny sour rotten fruit. But you have forgotten. You have forgotten everything. You have even forgotten how to love! Do you want me to tell you the story of yourself? Do you want to hear the truth?”
For the first time the old man stayed silent and forgot his duty to hate. Because for some reason the word Love tasted sweet in his mouth. Sweeter than anything he had tasted for years. But he would not answer. So, Mr. TUM continued.
“Love is the only thing worth knowing, worth having. Why do Mr. Invisible and Mrs. Nowhere lie and threaten. Because they miss true Love. This city used to be filled with beautiful gardens and flowing fountains. There was bright sunshine everywhere. But now the whole city is in ruins because there is no Love. This is because once long ago a man lost his wife. His Love. His grief spread through the city which hardened to anger, when they told him that his son had poisoned his mother. He knew that his son hadn’t done it but to remove the anger and shame he gave his son a terrible name and beat the son until the son was forced to run from his home. The hate became so dense that it is breathed in from the air. That man’s wife took the whole city’s love with her. She was the last one loved. Now if that one man took the whole city’s love, then I think that he and his son can weave back into the city, can’t we, my father?”
The old man (for by now he really was an old man) stared at the man before him and stepped back, his bloodshot eyes frozen, his hunched form losing all strength as he collapsed over the other man’s shoulders. And Mr.Tum embraced his father with true love for the first time in forty years. The old man clung to his son as the first pure beautiful tears leaked from his eyes and he sobbed as you do when you know that it will be all right.
“Yes we can . . . and we will my son. We will,” he said in his old croaking voice which sounded almost more beautiful to the son than what the words meant to him. Now, in all of that darkness and dust and hate and tears they had a promise to the city that they said they would fulfil.
And so they did.
By P.L. Rao
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