Think about your life

Think about your body and think about your soul, the river of blood that murmurs in the landscape of flesh and bones. And think what it means to think, which is the dialogue you persistently have with your own existence. Think why you struggle, face hardship, make sacrifices and snatch things away from others, the primal passions and cultivated fashions that ruffle the seas of instinct and impulse. Think what is conscience, which, like a police checkpost, frisks you if doubt crosses your mind whether you are right or wrong.

Think what it means to succeed and what it means to fail, the mirage within mirage, the illusions of life, which makes you think that the transient does not end. Think roughly 72 per cent of your body is made of water and you are stuffed with plenty of Rubidium and Silicon, which have no known biological role.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

If you believe in the Visuddhi-Magga in Buddhism, the body consists of exceedingly fine and impalpable powder. This is prevented from being dispersed and scattered, because it is held together by about half a bushel of water and is preserved by fire and propped up by wind. The fire element digests what is eaten and drunk and thus cooks the body to give its beauty of complexion and to keep it from decay. You walk, run, and stretch your arms, courtesy of the wind.

So who are you? Ask yourself. Ask why you need the Nobel Prize, the Oscar, recognition, glamour, glory, wealth, popularity, power, and everything else, if you don't last forever. Ask why you must indulge in the contradiction to seek permanence in evanescence, acquisition in decay and certainty in the uncertain? Think how life is akin to rain. The water in the body dries up when it dies. It then condenses from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls back to earth in a drop of another life.

This is one way to think how the cycle of life goes on through resurgence and renewal. But religion does not agree; it claims that the dead could only rise again on the Day of Judgement. Think how the meaning of life is never divulged as long as you live, and how the most enlightened ones went through life blind and ignorant without knowing why they lived, their glib tongue silenced in death, while the very essence of what they were, remained shrouded in mystery.

Think about lust and love, the same beast, which prowls the precincts of your body. It snarls in the groin and cuddles in the heart, your body switching between heat and warmth as the fire cooks desire at different temperature. You wish to possess and belong, your body turning into vapor in that tussle. One day the water is spent and you are gone, the lump of clay stashed under the ground, all its noise, poise, motions and emotions withdrawn like batteries from a mechanical toy.

The question is why do you live? Why do you walk the tightrope in the highwire act between temptation and temperance, need and greed, sloth and speed, sense and sanity, fruit and futility, compassion and cruelty, everything and its opposite? Would you start a project, if you knew you could not finish it? Then why do you live, when life walks in lockstep with death, when life is its own killer stalking you night and day?

Hunger is one of the primal forces of life, perhaps the strongest amongst all its forces, which drives much of its activities. You are comparable to an engine that needs fuel to run, but what does it mean? What does it mean to be wise, creative, rich, powerful and dignified? What does it mean to be chaste and honest, if the fire of hunger can singe your conscience? It is said that you cannot be wise with an empty stomach. Can you be anything for that matter, when hunger slowly weakens your body, and drops like a wilted flower?

Think about life, how brittle it is. You develop yourself as an epitome of virtues and qualities, and then drop dead for one of the many reasons why things could go wrong. You could get stabbed by a mugger, shot by an enemy, burned in fire, drowned in water, run over by a car, hit by something sharp or heavy. And when dead you are worse than vegetables because you decompose faster and perish long before potatoes go bad. Think about life, the uniform you wear, the power you hold, the wealth you accumulate. Think about your lineage, heritage, fame, comfort, and pleasure, all things that give you the satisfaction of being a cut above the mark.

Think about the ironies of life and how it works through people and their professions. One preaches, one teaches, while another leeches. There are those who speak of god, and there are those who speak like gods. Some are profound, some are profane; some are holy, some are hollow; some are proud, some are modest. Some sell their bodies and some sell their souls. Some beg, some steal, and there are those who do neither but go to the jungles to starve their bodies to feed their souls.

From priest to prostitute, from saint to scoundrel and from wise man to weasel, think of life and its many mysteries. Nothing is absolute, everything is relative; one life means nothing in isolation, unless it is a part of the collective. Keep it in your thoughts while you weave the story, keep it in your breaths, while you build the house, keep it in your dreams while you draw the picture. Life is a gift only when it is given to others.

While you think, breathe and dream, keep that in mind. Your story, your house and your picture must never be soaked in the tears of others. Remember life is 72 per cent water. And every time you hurt someone, it spills that water. Tears deplete life like summer exhausts a river. Take some time, and think of life. Let it run like a river.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.