Most of us keep trying to find meaning in our lives. Some of us are Sisyphus, and the others Naranath Bhranthan. The former is cursed to roll a huge boulder all the way up a hill only for it to roll down as it neared the top, an action which is repeated for eternity. The latter would roll the huge boulders up the hill and lets them roll down back by himself, and it is a sight which he enjoys. From the Greek myth and from the Indian Keralite folklore, we have two characters who perform meaningless, irrelevant actions, which are repeated again and again, as people look at them with wonder, and many future writers would have them as part of their works.
These rocks have purpose. Death has purpose, but do we?
Sisyphus is someone who was punished to carry out the meaningless thing for eternity. Most of us are like that, because we are part of a thankless world filled with evil humans. We have to go on doing our meaningless work all the time until our drop of eternity, the life ends. Even when we often have the feeling that life is meaningless, there is nothing that we can do about it, for we are cursed and damned to live through this eternity which is called life, even though it is originally a journey towards death. We carry these huge burdens, and some of us become good enough to be called successful, but all is lost in the end. There can be no true meaning to these actions.
Naranath Branthan or the Madman of Naranam is another person who gets a huge boulder to roll all the way up, and then pushes it down. He has been called the mad man, but he is the man who realizes the uselessness of one’s actions. He is showing everyone around him that whatever they are doing is useless, but people only laugh at him and considers him as a crazy person who does meaningless things. People feel that what they are doing will matter, but the truth is that none of these are of significance, and at least the mad man knows that everything happens for no reason. What is the significance of a human being and his or her actions? Absolutely nothing.
We are all trying to find some meaning in life with our actions, but the realization that there is none won’t do us any good. This is the reason why people keep doing something or the other to forget the meaningless of existence. When life’s purpose is to exist until one dies, and death being the final destination, you cannot ask for too much in this life. The only hope is the afterlife, as people can do the good deeds and wish for a place in paradise. But in this materialistic world, people are only after money and fame, with no real act of kindness being performed on a regular basis. People have no compassion, and hatred has roots in the minds of people of this age.
Finding the silver lining in the cloud is a worthless task.
One might feel that the struggle itself is enough to make the life worth living, but this is not really a world which deserves us. It doesn’t matter how hard we try to make it a better place, the world will not change. The only option which is left for us to do nothing, or become as terrible as the world itself. Paulo Coelho, in his work had said that when you want something, universe will conspire to help you achieve it, a quote which is often used in different contexts without shame. Everyone knows that nobody will help you to achieve your dreams, and most people will only try to make it worse for you. The universe is like that, and this quote is another attempt to make us go for futile things.
Ralph Waldo Emerson had also come up with a similar quote earlier, but he lived during a time when there seemed to be immense possibilities – the present world is the most hopeless one, and any hope that this universe brings us is fake. One does keep wondering about how many more centuries will it take for humans to realize that none of these matters. One also has wonder how many days it will take for the humans to have their own pessimistic speakers to make people understand that none of these matters. There should be a time when all these motivational speakers turn pessimistic and inform people the truth, that there is no need for inspiration in a mundane world.
It is a bigger wonder that some people still feel that there is hope. The politicians know that there is none, which is why they try to make as much money as possible instead of just living with their already huge salary. They happily make life worse for the very people who elect them, and find happiness in such actions. The advertisements are where the celebrities tell lies about products after taking a huge amount of money, thus cheating their fans, while the salesmen continuously lies to sell their products. I would guess that at least these people know that there is no hope in this world, and therefore they should lie, cheat and steal till the end of their meaningless life, and it won’t matter to them if they are fried by the devil in the afterlife.
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***The images used on this blog post were taken by me on my Samsung mobile phone during some of the little journeys for the soul.
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