Hark, the last night of the year sings again its ancient song – the song of a new dawn! It is time again to wistfully wave farewell to yet another year; a year that I have often referred to as one of the most memorable years of my life. Indeed, I have proudly knighted it as one of the defining landmarks of my life. Why, you ask? Well, that is one question I have often been asked and I decided that tonight would be a good time to try and think of a worthy answer.
The end of one year and the beginning of another one have always been a very significant and meaningful phenomenon for me for as long as my memories stretch back in time. In my life, I have designated such transitions as moments of examination and reflection of moments past and moments yet to come. In this aspect perhaps, I am a little Socratic – I believe that an unexamined life is absolutely not worth living. So, each year I take the time to remember, to examine and to reflect upon all that was said, all that was thought, all that was done and all that was omitted. And through such an endeavor, I bring closure to the passing year and, in effect, ‘close’ one chapter of my life and turn over for the next one.
Why, you ask? Simply, because it makes sense. Because I believe that our actions remain woefully incomplete without examination and evaluation. Why, you ask again? Because I believe, along the lines of ancient Hindu linguistic traditions, that at the root of every action is a thought and that a thought is but a latent action. But despite this, I have found that men often act out of the so-called impulse, out of instinct or out of blind desire – they act but unknowingly lose grip of the thought that seeded the action, as it recedes into the deceptive caverns of the unconscious. In effect, ‘they know not what they do’. But what problem does this cause, you ask? It is the problem of being, my friend – the problem of our very existence and essence. Ours is a world of assumptions. It is a nature of this world that we know ourselves and are known by the sum of our actions. It is similarly a nature of our world that we are judged in accordance with the perceptions of our actions and the presumptions of the thoughts underlying our actions. Thus, the world seeks to judge us, assigning values to our acts which then generalize themselves erroneously onto our thoughts and, soon, fatally onto our selves. And thus the gullible denizens of this world fallaciously assume that a bad act must necessarily have arisen from a bad thought and that a bad thought must have been harbored by a bad person. Such provocative phenomena tend to make life quite morally distressing for philosophers; luckily, they also incite us to think deeper into the ways of this world, in the ill-fated search of a resolution that, more often than not, does not exist. In the unkind light of such logical scars upon the fabric of our world, I find that men, deluded by their own delusions, feel compelled to conduct themselves according to an image of themselves in their minds – an image they lavish with their cherished values. Disillusioned by the desire to assign value to their being, to ‘be good’ or to ‘be kind’, they focus less on their thoughts and even lesser on their actions. Men, naïve and ignoble, forget that however causally and intricately bound their thoughts and their actions remain, the values that are joined upon their actions do not necessarily traverse up the causal chains to their thoughts or vice versa. And thus, on the sacred ground of moral values, all hell breaks loose and we fall helplessly into the dreaded pits of moral crisis. It is in times like these that one is led to realize the important of examining closely one’s actions and one’s thoughts and to what extent they may possibly bear values of significance. But only examining is not enough; there is a need for evaluation. I have found that the actions of men end up being valued and re-valued incessantly by the multitudes and this causes confusion and inconsistency in our actions, in our thoughts and in being who we are; which is why I have felt the need to advocate the necessity of evaluating one’s own actions, regardless of what other values may later follow. Why, you ask? Because I believe, as a fundamental rule, then when one loses one’s sense of values, when one fails to perceive the links between one’s actions and one’s thoughts, one ceases to ‘be’ and, in effect, obliterates the fragile distinction between the human and the inhuman; because I believe that the essence of humanity lies firmly enshrined in the proper and consistent relations of being, thought, action and value. And thus, an examination and evaluation of our lives is the only way one may be rescued from the hopeless pits of moral angst and behold the entirety of our existence through a proper and, more importantly, consistent perspective. But again, no action is ever in isolation – all our actions are bound, intricately and systematically, to all our thoughts and it is from this primeval matrix that our true cognizable selves arise and we become eligible of veritable and authentic personhood, rather than an inconsistent cluster of fleeting shadows – someone we ‘think’ we are. So, just as it takes great intelligence to appreciate the elegance of a thousand trees but greater wisdom to admire the beauty of a forest, the review of an isolated action remains petty in contrast to the grand vision of all our thoughts and all our actions in their entirety etched beautifully and consistently upon the horizon of our existence, reminding us all of who we are, where we came from and where we are headed. The end of a year and the beginning of a new one presents us with the perfect moment for this contemplation – the progressive act of knowing oneself better. And through these cogitations of late, I have realized and, to those who often turn to me for counsel in darker moments, I advise, that it is more important to ‘do good’ rather than to ‘think good’ or to ‘be good’ because it makes more sense by far.
Through immense highs and bottomless lows, upon the unruly waves, like an unrulier ship, I have sailed through time. Chasing success and, in turn, being chased by failure, I have come quite a long way – one of the longest I have known. The road has not been easy, I tell you, and time has not been so kind. Weary with toil, I stand before you, with grayer hairs, singing long-forgotten tales of hope and despair.
Through perilous voyages and darkening horizons, men often lost sight of their shores. Like the blind led by the blind, they fumble in the dark of ignorance and folly, tempted by the enchanting depths of the ocean of delusion. And thus tempted, they raise their eyes skyward despairingly and wonder about Fate – that mysterious determinant of things. Often the complexity of our lives frightens us and men long for simpler times. But I have realized over time through careful thought that simplicity and complexity are two sides of the same coin; it all depends on how one wishes to see things. The perceived world is an immense conundrum of causes and effects. The effects are complex and the causes simple. An obsession with effects brings to men a clouded vision of their complex lives while an attachment to causes brings them the illuminating vision of a deviously simple life. And through this simple vision, my friend, we inherit much of the powers that Fate appears to exert over our lives. But even then, I have found through certain events in my life that despite all my free agency, things seem to have worked out as if directed along a grander scheme and I have wondered if there was a resolution to this conundrum at all or if the dichotomy was itself an illusion and they were, in reality, two sides of the same coin? Through my yearlong cogitations, I find that I have come to affix my faiths mostly upon the latter idea. But of what is true, who indeed knows?
The journey of life is a strange one: the ‘where’ is pointed out to us – sometimes the ‘how’ as well – but the ‘why’ we are left to figure out for ourselves. And the stranger thing is that there is no single or correct ‘why’. And we, having figured out one of the endless many ‘why’s, proceed to weigh it on the scales of our desires and fears. Some, satisfied, sail on to predestined shores, while the less-fortunate others start searching for better ‘where’s. In retrospect, life seems composed less of destinations than of moments that make us change our minds mid-journey. Rarely do men ever reach the destination they first set out for. Indeed, that is what makes this journey so unique – the mystery of not knowing how many times we will change direction or which shore we find end up on. Life is not certain, yes, I agree; only because it waits to be ascertained by those living it. Those of faint heart let the ship of life sail of its own accord, deluded that life remains rigidly uncertain, while the strong-hearted leap forward to hold the helm and crown themselves masters of their own fate. And through this direction, or lack thereof, that which we know as and call life emerges. And the ultimate destination in man’s life, as I have realized, is not, as I once used to think, knowledge. Knowledge is merely a tool that helps us along the way. All life is about meaning – it is an eternal hunt for meaning in a world that is completely devoid of anything meaningful whatsoever. On meticulous reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that life is a polytelic affair (Greek, poly many, telos end), in the sense that you will never find a singular purpose or end to it, no matter how hard you look. It is all about finding your own directions, finding your own meanings, finding your own ‘why’s; the ‘where’ and ‘how’ are, in the grand scheme of things, by far less relevant. Often, having found their ‘why’s, there are many who, fearful of error, cannot figure out the how. But I should think that everyone in this world is born with a gun in one hand and a bullet in the other. The ‘how’ of life is all about putting them together by yourself – figuring out how to put the bullet in the gun, how to aim at the ‘where’ and, finally, how to pull the trigger. And in the course of this illuminating journey, through a series of events, both fortunate and unfortunate, I have come to resign myself to the humble belief that, at the end of the day, ‘no man is truly an island, entire of itself’. The journey is solitary, yes, but not the path; for there are always those will you sail by you and often with you, for however brief moments. You may or may not see them; they may or may not see you, the fogs of presumption and misperception may tend to hide you from each-other. But you must know that no joy, no sorrow, no trodden path is truly and only your own. Joy, sorrow, happiness, grief, etc – these are human emotions and belong to the whole of humanity. Your joy is felt by all and so are your sorrows, grief and pain. Who we are in our lives is a conglomerate of all those who have sailed by and with us. And therefore, I take this moment to thank those who have sailed alongside me – my guiding constellations, my guardian angels – without whom my life loses all meaning and all direction and shrivels mercilessly into nothingness. I am who I am; I go where I go; because of every single one of you.
The storms may come, yes, and the tides will inevitably turn against you – the wheel of fortune never stops turning. But, my friend, this is what I have learned: you should never give up, never ever. There are those of faint heart who live their lives, deluded and tricked into thinking they are ordinary. But let me tell you a secret that I have discovered. We humans, my friend, are made of extraordinary stuff. And extraordinary things don’t happen to people who are content with their apparently ordinary lives; extraordinary things happen to those people who refuse to accept the lives they are born into and thus strive incessantly, racing against time, to crown themselves masters of their own destiny. Extraordinary things are not for the faint of heart; they are for those who have the courage and strength to force their mortal lives into immortal legends.
Behold, the world grows old, heavy with advancing years, and along the seams that have held humanity together for ages, cracks often emerge. Meaning that supported civilizations and cultures often decline and move towards their inevitable demise and at times, we feel that the world is falling into a crisis of values, not knowing what is right, not knowing what is good. Hope seems to fade and all things human seem to lose their humaneness. The gloom of inhumanity descends upon us and the pall of death and decay looms. But you must fight, my friend, you must fight. Not with double-edged blades and not for blood, for that path is of the weak. Not with hollow words and not for vain ideals, for that path is of the proud. Neither with mindless forgiveness nor with heartless retribution, but with endless compassion and for the human spirit, dauntless and indomitable, for that is the path of the brave, the path of the strong and the path of the wise!
In humanity, my friend, you should never lose faith, for if you lose faith in humanity, there is nothing left to hinge your faiths on. Even if the divides between right and wrong, good and evil fade away into the mist of ignorance, you must still brave on for the sake of the human spirit, for the divide between the human and the inhuman can never fade; you will always find it inside you, if only you choose to seek it. Even when all values collapse and all things are rendered meaningless, even when you remain the last human of faith; know this, my friend, that if you still have hope, if you still have faith, then all of humanity has hope. You must know that you alone are all of us; and we all are and in you. You win, we win; you lose, we lose.
Behold the unevenness of the world, the testaments of injustice, unfurling before you – the vigils of wax and flame, the roars of rage, the tremors of great wrath – but give yourself not to frenzy and let not the sins of others incite you to inhuman deeds. Yet embrace not the flawed with mindless forgiveness; strike not the marred with heartless retribution. Humanity is the narrow path in between these two and ‘the road less-travelled’. This lamp of wisdom I give to you, dear friend, may it illumine, and keep you from losing, your way.
Yet despite the ever-growing unevenness and imbalance of the world, hope, I have in abundance. In the grand scheme of things, believe me: we are all heroes and cowards, saints and sinners, angels and demons. But I have hope in the free choices of the human spirit, and in the end, it is, more often than not, a matter of a single and simple choice that turns us into either one of the two. It is this hope that has the singular power to undo a tiny bit of all imbalances in this uneven world, however slight the effort and the effect. And it is this hope – this singular human emotion, above and beyond all others, blessed and cursed – that makes all the difference in the world. This hope, my friend, I give to you in plenty.
I thus resolve:
May we ‘do good’.
May we be more graceful.
May we be more compassionate.
And thus, may we be more humane.
With the passing of 2012, I raise and shed, a salute to the valiant and a tear for the ill-fated, as I offer up prayers for absolution of sins past, in all that was thought, in all that was said, in all that was done and all that was omitted. With evergreen hopes for more meaning, more grace and, more importantly, ever more hope in our lives, I welcome, with open arms, the coming of 2013 as I offer up prayers for the prosperity, well-being, happiness and peace of all…
Kolkata, Pauṣa Kṛṣṇā Tṛtīyā.
The 31st of December in 2012.