Friday, May 1, 2009

What Does Being Alive Mean?

We are alive. For, we breathe, we move, we do things that pebbles probably cannot.
But what does it mean, "to live"?

There ARE more than 6 billion people on earth. And we are only a few among them. It doesn't make a difference whether we live or we die. Nobody cares to see what we do, what we don't. And even if we don't do something, nothing happens to the system. The sky doesn't break apart and fall on your roof.
Then, why should we live?

This of course is the question that philosophers have been asking themselves and others for centuries. This of course is the question that makes many men in their harshest times, lie on the railway track waiting for the train, or tie one end of a rope on a ceiling fan and the other end around the neck?

Why?

There are many ways to answer this:

One way is the path of spirituality. You don't know why you live, you ask why and move, hopefully, towards the answer. These are most often propelled by spirituality gurus. They tell you that God is there, but you can find him, only through unflinching devotion. But betting on a God one whose very existence is doubted, is a risk that no sane human is gonna take. (That's why we call a saint, insane)

Another way is to accept the truth and just live. You know you are living. And though you don't know why you are living, you know how to live, so, you live.
And to live so, there are many ways. Some people live luxuriously. Some miserably. Some are happy, that they are living. Some wait for death. You just live the way you lived until this why-question came to your mind.

Yet another way is to know that you are blessed to be living, and more, to be living as a human, and then, to use your life to the best, reach out for the maximum and make it huge.
This is the kind of life that we should aim at.
We are alive. There is only one life. Then why not make it huge???

Socialize. Volunteer. Participate in whatever is going on around. Read everything. Learn anything new. Help every one. Love all. Play for fun. Laugh. Smile. Make others happy. Talk. Teach. Dream. Do big things. Change the world.

And finally you've got the answer. Why are you alive?


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1 comment :

riddhiculous said...

very well written post. a good thought. Change permeates at all levels. But just to think about how people end up ending their lives and not feeling blessed. May be they are not blessed. Things you want them to do - smile, help others, read, ... with depravities of life it might hurt them to smile.. helping themselves wud have semmed difficult.. reading might not have been facilitated coz they are illiterate..
here comes your thot.. where we feature.. the privileged.. the "have" coming forward for have nots... to make the most of it for ourselves not on the cost of others.
I loved this one. way to go akshay.




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