A flat tyre, a sudden desire or an unexpected accident are some of those fears that stand so still like pieces on a chessboard. One may think that a great tragedy breaks a person but, it isn’t. It is the continuing series of small miseries. Sometimes a snapped shoelace at the worst moment is enough to break a person. As Charles Bukowski said, “somewhere along the line, we become someone we said we would never be.”
Sounds familiar, isn’t it? At some point, most of us-willingly or not- transform into a stranger we never even imagined. We reach an age our childhood selves thought impossible. That innocent and carefree child starts fading under the weight of life. Time and age are inevitable foes, our whole life we battle along the way until that precise moment come. But perhaps we can regain those pieces.
Much of our anger, harshness and loss of childlike nature springs from the belief that our worth depends on success and achievement. So, we sacrifice our joy in pursuit of a promised land. Along the journey, we meet others doing the same: people who hurt us by choice or accident. We learn to build protective shells; it makes us hard. But we forget to ask ourselves, is becoming strong and hard enough? Is it a success? Some motivational speakers may claim that by killing today’s fun, you will get a luxury ahead. But wait! We often discover that the joy we sacrificed does not await us in greater form at the end.
Arthur Schopenhauer explains the man's journey so beautifully, he says: “A man is never happy; he spends his life striving for something he thinks will make him so. He seldom attains it and when he does, he is disappointed.”
In most cases, our dissatisfaction is not a result of our life’s condition, but it’s our irrational expectations and perceptions. Our cynicism and bitterness can originate in the false belief that life would always feel as it did in childhood, we took those moments as granted. Remember those adults, who once scolded even our laughter were not wrong; they simply lost their life’s joy. A point comes in everyone’s life; we feel the same way as they did.
When age hit us hard, we can be knocked down completely. We may hallucinate and think that if we do everything right, life will become fruitful like it used to be. But true joy comes when we accept the inevitable and uncontrollable. Albert Camus coined the term “the absurd” to describe humanity’s relationship with a universe that offers no guarantees of meaning. In his words,
“Man stands face to face with the irrational; he feels within him his longing for happiness and reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation.”
We see that our desire for control and joy collides with life’s disappointments and frustrations. But the pain? It isn’t an inherent phenomena, it is born from our expectations. We humans can change our experience by changing how we perceive it. Although, human’s condition is absurd, it can still be filled with passionate beauty if we choose to see it that way. Camus says: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” This optimistic approach reveals that even the dull and annoying can be beautiful.
We shouldn’t wage war on what we deem ugly. Turning our faces away can be our only negation. Ultimately, I want to be only affirmation. While anger, frustration and cynicism are necessary responses to life’s challenges, it’s equally essential to loosen our grip on what we think must matter. Everything ends blindly, so we must be careful not to lose ourselves before that end. We need to resist by accepting life’s complexity, chaos and tragedy, we can still rediscover moments of joy and playfulness. Choosing to laugh instead of scoff in the face of absurdity is a brave act. Ultimately, one of the most beautiful efforts one can make is to understand and guided his thinking process–bringing our unconscious mental patterns into light–because this can change the very quality of how we experience life.
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Note: A brief reason, two days ago we (Muslims) had Eid-ul-Adha, when most Muslims sacrifice animals to fulfill religious obligations. The real problem is that for the past 3–4 years, I haven’t felt any excitement or enthusiasm; the festival feels more boring than a normal day. At first I thought it was just me, but everyone my age feels the same. I asked around—people pointed to age, inflation, etc.—so I decided to investigate why it feels like nothing Is fun anymore. I must say it is just one example for many 'once all fun, now all dull. activities'
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Regards🕊️
