Every civilisation goes from the present to the future through a bit of embarrassment.
‘To be or not be’ is the opening phrase of a monologue given by Prince Hamlet in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. It is the great question that Hamlet asks about human existence in general and his own existence in particular. Hamlet bemoans the pain and unfairness of life acknowledging that the alternative might be worse.
This line from the above soliloquy has been widely quoted in cinema, theatre, literature, and music. Perhaps it is the most quoted soliloquy. People quote it because they can relate to it. To be or not to be is the predicament in every human life. Franz Kafka in his book Metamorphosis, and Richard Bach in his book Jonathan Livingston Seagull have individuals standing at the threshold of to be or not to be. One decides to be, and another decides not to be. Both travel in opposite directions.
In Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, we have Gregor Samsa, who waking up one morning finds himself (believes himself) as an insect, a huge bug. His existential struggle is explored in the novel. He goes into cold isolation, not having the courage to believe otherwise and come out of the room. As time goes he gets into greater isolation and eventually dies.
In Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach explores the possibility of change and human becoming. He uses, the seagull as a metaphor for humans. A seagull lives a limited life. Most of its time it spends by the nest, mating, hatching and breeding. From there he flies to food and back to the nest again - a limited world. But one day, Jonathan, a seagull, decided to be. Against traditions and all odds, he began to fly high into the freedom of the sky. At some level, this departure is painful and looks like death. Richard Bach’s words from another book, Illusions, complete the picture; he says, “what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
We are at the turn of a year. Another year is shrunken by the pandemic. We spend it in anxiety, depression and sorrow. We have lost a few million people to the Corona virus, Afghanistan is fallen to the Taliban, conflict has killed Danish Siddiqui, Governmental antipathy and unbridled laws have killed Stan Swamy early in the year, and recently more than a dozen in Nagaland. Climate change has wrecked ravage in many parts of the world including India. Accidents, like the defense chopper crash near Ooty, have taken human lives. There is enough reason and it is easier not to be; but as a humanity it is an imperative to be. We must once again pick the threads of our lives with indomitable spirit and resilience.
Contemporariness
There is no time in the year more apt than its ends to reflect on the ‘now’, and to return to the present. The ‘now’ of our lives looks deeper, back, and forward. This conscious return to the present makes one a contemporary. To be a contemporary is not just to exist at the same point of time but who is aware of that particular time’s light and darkness. Only someone who lives in such contemporariness, can see the next step, or the missing box, and embrace change.
It is a time, as Eckhart Tolle says, to watch the thinker, to observe the doer, to guard ourselves. Our mind and our ability to think perhaps is a very powerful and even dangerous tool. But what is even more powerful and dangerous is that a person is not in control of it. Our hands and other tools and technologies for work are very potent and even treacherous. But what is even more potent and treacherous is that a person does not know how to be in control of it. Every New Year wakes us up to this responsibility of contemporariness. Some of us decide to be, and others decide not to be.
Breaking Repetitions
Doing the same things over and over and over again and expecting a different result is foolishness. Walking the same road everyday and believing that you will reach a new destination one day is stupidity. Let me remind ourselves of two incidents, one a funny one, and another a lesson from history.
A family of five approached a helicopter service to hire a helicopter to go for a picnic. The manger at the office told them that the helicopter could carry only three people, or maximum four, so they must look at some other mode of transport. The family insisted and told him that they had gone last year also. Finally the manager gave in. As they were flying to the destination, the helicopter crashed down into a large marshy land. The pilot was the last to gain consciousness. When he got up he was puzzled to see the head of the family and others examining the place, he asked them, what happened? What are you looking for? The head of the family was quick to answer, “We are looking for the place where we fell last year.”
The second incident is from the life of Emperor Asoka, one of the greatest emperors of ancient India. After his war of Kalinga, he takes a walk through the battlefield and sees the agony and sufferings of people: men mutilated, half burned, and dead; wives mourning over their husband’s death, children crying for bread at the dead bodies of their fathers. Asoka takes a last walk through the battlefields and out; and decided never to war again.
When we are serious and expecting a different result we must uncompromisingly begin to think and do things differently. Or, our worship places will become places of quarrel and bloodshed; our public spaces will become spaces of violence and war.
Embarrass the World
Every enterprise and society goes from the present to the next through a bit of embarrassment. Save the embarrassment, but we remain in the same. Facing our own selves is an imperative to arrive in the future. Every growth, every development demands a painful parting from the past.
Baba Amte was son of a wealthy upper caste landowner in Warora, near Nagpur. Young Amte lived a carefree, privileged life. He was a lawyer. He wore expensive suits, drove sports cars. As time went on, he was disturbed by the fact that the society he lived in was so much stratified on lines of caste. After search and research, to the embarrassment of his own orthodox family and people, he made a break with the practices of his own caste. He allowed Harijans to draw water from his family well. He started farmers’ cooperatives to help the impoverished peasantry. To understand what it meant to be scavenger, he even carried night soil on his head. Eventually, he founded Anandwan – a huge centre for lepers and other socially and economically underprivileged people. He in every sense embarrassed his family, relatives, and his caste.
During the season of Christmas, another startling example is of Mary and Joseph, the parents of Jesus. They were both Traditional Jews. Mary was informed that she would conceive and bear a son through the Holy Spirit, the latter was told in a dream to take Mary who was already pregnant as his wife. We can imagine what amount of embarrassment they must have brought to their household and family. Every civilisation goes from the present to the future through a bit of embarrassment.
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