“When the music’s over, turn out the lights.” –Hitler’s last words. Arguably, one of the best quotes of human history coming from the depth of human insecurity and the refusal to believe that the lights burn on forever, we are the ones who get extinguished in our journey towards the light. The most controversial, infamous character of maybe, all of time has something for us in his parting words.
Really, is there anything after we are gone…why can’t we believe that that I am…therefore the world is…and when I’m gone…so are the lights. The eternal music of life slowly fades out from inside us and in spite of our desperate screams of don’t turn off the lights, we will be left alone in the dark.
Terrifying though the thought is, not unlike the ingenious torture method of making one realize how puny, he is in the universe and how insignificant and unimportant his life is, we are forced to acknowledge one fact that we are the centre of our universe. All of us by nature are self-centered and we like to believe that we are important in the larger scheme of things. Take a short bus ride and you will find more than half the people trying to explain how indispensable he/she is in his/her field of work. We do not like to believe that we are replaceable and we find bliss in this life of denial.
Thus, we are content sucking on the candies of after-life and rebirth, refusing to believe that one day the game’s over. At this point however, I am forced to stop by a disturbing notion. Man really needs something to hold on to and the fact that one day ‘I’ (somehow using this word after one is dead seems meaningless to me) will have to go into an infinite abyss of darkness of which nothing is known and I will have to leave everything I worked so hard for…my entire life behind (am not sure whether ‘behind’ is the correct word to use as we do not or I believe we do not really go forward anywhere…termination may be a better word in the context) lets face it, is not the most pleasant idea I would like to wake up to in the morning.
Maybe, this is where the concept of ‘I’ comes back to us as very important, what if we can believe that everything is happening because of me and after ‘crossing-over’(once again am not sure of the phrase, because I really do not believe we cross something, we are physically spread all over the atmosphere as molecules is more like it…) all lights will be turned off and will be dark here, rather than where I am going…if at all we go anywhere. Somehow, I find what I understood in class 6 physics way more comforting than any of these…the law of conservation of mass completely assures us that we cannot be destroyed, we will always be there in some form or the other. Isn’t that what we want? Yes, I know your answer The Soul…but again its presence is quite controversial ain’t it, kind of like a 2kg cat eating 2kg of meat and still weighing 2kg…if that’s the cat where’s the meat…if that’s the meat where is the cat?? Even though it might be striking a hornet’s nest but I feel its brave of a man who can call for the lights to be turned off…because as I see it we are all afraid of the dark.
Taking a leaf out of Robert Frost’s book, where he puts forward an idea that death can be an inspiration for life…we can take life to be the limited day-time period after which there is darkness. This reminds me of a particular description in a book called The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh where he talks of a village hospital, in the Sunderbans, which has been gifted a generator. This generator is run for only two hours every night and then there is absolute darkness. Everybody has attuned themselves to this to this routine such that there is a brief flurry of activity during this time and then there’s quiet. Life is somewhat like this two-hour generator time…a sojourn of sorts and we go back to our tryst with eternity.
I come back to the point where I started this unimportant, distracted and disheveled rambling…the fact that Adolf Hitler was a notorious man, notwithstanding, I find an acceptance of the truth in his last words but how many of us really dare to know, understand let alone accept the truth?
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4 comments:
Its abstract...to the point of loss of sense and meaning....you've put forth immersible yet unanswered notions....I think the idea had a turbulent flow...which spread over a wide array of thoughts....from a variety of personalities....I like the description of life as the 2 hour light filled part of night....But I'm not quite sure whether everything void can be darkness....you never know...coz you've never seen....But yes it speaks out a lot about all the limits which our imaginations can cross...interesting...keep writing
And there’s one God, if you believe in one, who likes looking back at the humour, at the helplessness of a few DNA sequences running about, stranded in the trick called life, at the puppet show that began from the beginning of life, yet, however, it is us, Life, that gives birth to the Universe, to the puppet-show, to the humour, to God.
One glimpse of the darkness in your soul: the fact that your time will be up one day, for this one life you have, for this story of your one shot, and you’ll melt into the darkness forever, with all your dreams, with all your beliefs, all your victories and failures and fears and desires and love, to be another DNA sequence, another cocktail of nucleotides and thoughts, to spin another threadbare story of beliefs and dreams and love….: and you wonder, the purpose that you served or the universe did.
Is it just that we are all but strangers in the same subway station between two trains? And we meet, we laugh, we fall in love, and then when the train comes we pack our bags, like such love, such laughter, such warmth had no meaning?
And neither shall we question where we are headed or where we are going?
The truth, as you put it, is that life is but an explosion of light between two infinities of darkness. Yet, however, not even a scratch in such infinity, which is perhaps not even a scratch in the even greater infinity….
The allusion to Hungry Tide is remarkable....What an array of thoughts, you have assembled in that little piece of space..But even after the numerous ideas and opinions...the one that is the truth is there in the begining and the end....you can retain your stronghold on a particular point, even while exploring a thousand.....It's the truth....when the music's over, switch off the lights...yes, that's what it is like...so, we need to be fast and make the most of today.....After all, its not for nothing that there our poets have stuck ti the concept of carpe diem, through all times......
The reference to The Hungry Tide was illuminating...
I've read that book but it never struck me that way...you do have a way of changing perspectives, don't you?
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