A mirage of life
Why do people make babies?
Just a question asked by a guy who is skeptical about life. Think about it…., take a few moments off your screen, let that digital zombie of yours go to sleep for a few minutes and think about the reasons that why a person might want to bring another human being on this horrible land which already is densely populated.
Those first steps, little cute steps. Their first word. Their first birthday, the pics you take on every vacation and look at on occasional Sunday afternoons. Their first day at school, when they leave crying and come back crying. The rebellious teenage period when they just won’t listen to you. Those headaches and worries about their future. Their marriage, the bondages that come along with it, and then you are no longer there to help them…you get old.
If I ever were to put a child on this earth, I will have one of the following reasons:
- I feel so alone that I decide to have some children to fill the lonely silences in my room on Friday evenings.
- My wife/parents force me into it.
- I become overwhelmed by the cuteness and innocence of children and decide to have some of my own.
- I fall into some sort of psychological trap deciding that I need to extend my family line and thus I must have kids.
I don’t see a fifth statement that might populate that list.
I don’t find the first four compelling enough either.
When I was a kid, I believed with all my heart that God will take care of all of us, as all kids do. I used to believe that eventually, no matter what, the virtuous will always win over the evil. I believed that the world is a happy joyful place and we never die. Needless to say, it was a terrible heartbreak when I got to know the reality of the world. What is that reality? Well, you know it sweety, don’t act innocent.
I remember spending countless hours staring at nothing. Thinking nothing particular, but my head was still full of thoughts. Looking into people’s eyes for answers that don’t exist, for questions, I don’t know myself.
If the world was really governed by a high mighty body like God, then why would he let so many innocent people die every day? Why do criminals, terrorists roam the streets freely and innocent civilians lose blood to earn bread. Why do the Talibans get to decide what the Afghani women will wear, how they will behave, what they will do? One might counter approach the situation saying that the person who is suffering is doing so because of karma. Really? Okay Detective Joe, then tell me why is a 5-year-old kid of a laborer going to sleep tonight empty bellied. What is something wrong that he has done? Pissed on his bed in the night? Does that qualify as a crime? Why would God let so much injustice, chaos, and darkness prevail over his children?
Hindu scriptures say that life is but a journey from one body to another. The soul is undying, the soul can’t be tarnished, it can’t be touched, you cannot wet it with water, slay it with a sword, or dry it with the wind. It is the center of who we are, our existential reality. It is the soul that travels from one heap of carbon body to another over several lifetimes until it finally dissolves in the mighty being at the center of existence itself, God.
Even with this philosophy/reality/myth, it doesn’t explain why God wants us to struggle so much. If the soul is indeed our real existential reality, and we are just beings flowing through the cosmos passing on from one body to another, we are actually suffering the same thing over and over again without knowing. We have to face our first heartbreak every time we are born, we have to be scared of the dark every time we are a toddler, we have to lose our parents every lifetime they grow old, we will feel the pain in the back, lack of hearing, fading memory and eyesight every time we approach the end of that lifetime. Why is God so cruel to make us suffer the same things again and again?
Looking at life this way gives more sense to suicidal tendencies than depressed people have. Why suffer the things which can’t be avoided?
Can you avoid having a rebellious teenager kid who will give me headaches every other day? Can you avoid getting old? Can you avoid getting sick? If not, then why even try.
On the contrary, if we succumb to the fact, that there is in fact no God at all. It is all just a game played by nature. Came into existence due to millions of years of the evolutionary process.
Then there is no point in life at all. Because it is all just a coincidence. A cruel joke played by the nature. It is a coincidence that it all happened here on Earth. Your being born is itself a coincidence. You are here reading this article just because you were the fastest of the sperms your father squirted into your mother’s belly. Great Achievement! Welcome to Earth. Now you have a brain that hurts, a body you have to constantly take care of, and a family you have to look after. If there is no God, there is no purpose of our lives, no incarnation, no dissolving into the mighty being, we are here, we spend an insignificant amount of time, and then we disappear. Chaos.
Bob Dylan said —
“If your time to you is worth savin’
And you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’ ”
One of the words that will always stay true. Until the end of time, if that actually exists. As long as humanity lives, as long as life perpetuates on this planet, the planet will change, and we will have to change with it, or else we will be forgotten. Left behind. And change is the real struggle that life offers us. If you can embrace change, you can almost always embrace anything.
Coming back to where we started. Knowing this, do you still feel that you want to bring a kid into this earth? That little baby doesn’t even know what it is getting into. Still, want kids? Why not adopt? I know why not, it's not yours.
I am not the president of North Korea, nor am I a judge. Just another person who was once a kid. I can’t pass on judgments or enforce/approve rules about giving birth to babies. I merely present my thoughts, the choice is yours. It has always been yours.
Rajat Upadhyay
Everybody is making love, or else expecting rain…