Day 76 : The Mercy of Passion

 I am reading a book called 'The Burden of Proof' by Scott Turow. It’s nothing exciting or anything. Just another bland legal-crime drama with the usual familial intrigues cliché "gotcha" twists. I liked one of Turow's longer books called 'Laws of Our Fathers', which comes under this same Kindle County series this book comes from. So obviously I thought to give another of his book a shot. So far, it’s pretty daily fare, haven't really come to appreciate it yet.

As with every book I read, there comes a page or a sentence or a phrase that is so well coined and expressed it makes sense why a writer has made it big when all of the other wannabe writers get lost in the vast nothingness of self-published amazon books.

The phrase in question - "The mercy of passion"

The context of it wasn't as jarring as the implications this phrase can take on. At that moment, as is usual, I put the e-reader down and go on the mental somersault of weird philosophical contemplation or letting the grey matter between our ears go on a trot. Usually ends up in a rather depressing state really. But I sort of enjoy having the luxury of being able to go on this little excursion every once in a while and pretend to be able to be using our brains for something other than the mundane routine of our daily lives.

That's where I guess the passion part of today's discourse comes in I guess. Not many people are lucky enough to have found the one big passion of their lives. The one thing that drives them and eventually shapes their whole life. People spend almost all of their adolescent life trying to find it, adult life trying to chase it, and all their elder life regretting that they never chasing tails all their life. And also, having that passion in you in some ways makes you invincible or rather immune to a lot of things. You will be excused with having to endure a lot of mundane things in life you have this image of being passionate about something. "Oh, he doesn't attend social gatherings like weddings and such. He believes these commitments compels him to take away his time better spent following molecular biology." "Oh, she doesn't do dating. She believes it being a figment of patriarchal tradition trying to shove misogynistic ideologies down women's throats." "Oh, he cannot pay the rent this month. He believes paying for rent makes him short of funds better spent gambling."

A lot of people are passionate about a lot of things in life. Not everything that would be considered good by everyone. But the thing is, I don't think it matters really. If you like what you do. And by pursuing it you are not breaking any laws or harming anyone. Well, more power to you. Go ahead, follow your heart’s desire. At least you are not dragging your lives one day at a time, evermore closer to your deathbed. So what happens if you don't you don't achieve your dreams, at least you can tell yourself on your deathbed that you tried. Maybe this mercy that you can grant yourself on the deathbed would be the one that decides if yours was a life worth living or just another live that was. 

I don't really think there is anything on the other side of death. Once you die, that's about it. Done. Fin. Nothing but a vast blackness that pours over you until the end of time. You just don't exist anymore. You as a person, as whatever name they call you and your body now, is done. So what defines you is what you do of your life while you have it. And passion plays a big thing in that. We all just need to find something that we are eagerly and honestly passionate about. It doesn't have to be something like an unattainable goal. It just can be something that you enjoy doing that you can just keep doing every day and not be tired of. If your day right now doesn't include more of that, ensure that tomorrow does. Make plans to spend more time each day for that thing that you feel you are passionate about. That way as the years pass on there will come a point in life where you find that your whole day is spent doing that one thing of which you are passionate. And that one day. That one point in life. That is Heaven.

Day 52 : Grandeur

Grandeur. This is another big disease that mankind's been afflicted with. We are all very much a victim/culprit of this. We believe in our bones that we are much better than the people around us or that we are living a life that is much beneath us. We are built for greater things.

While the later part does sound pretty true. We are all meant for greater things but that does not mean that those great things will have to bow down to us and be awestruck at the sight of our infinite glory. While we sit there on our sorry butts twiddling our thumbs.

We are all bigger than they lives we live. I don't suppose anyone, no matter how rich or famous is really content with what he/she has. We all want more; mainly because we all think we all deserve it. It is also this very thinking that sows the seed of greed, despise, animosity, and petty quarrels.

I suppose the only thing that makes us a different from the kindergarten kids is that our sense of grandeur while does incite negativity in us; it can often inspire us to accomplish amazing achievements. Make ungodly inventions, do great things, amass an indecent amount of wealth. All that because we honestly believe that we deserve more.

I wish we grander still in our humanity.

Don't you think world would be a much beautiful place if there were more people thought it in their power to be gracious and generous. Love each other, respect each other's life, tend to their needs, and help the needy. I suppose our sense of alpha dog, could also very well be used sometimes to take care of the underdogs. They too deserve it.

Today, be a grander 'humane' being.

Day 50 : You're not the Master of Your Own Destiny

We are all inherently narcissistic specie. We all have a sense of grandeur that we take for granted each day; the sense that we matter. We are all somebody and the each thing that we do or say or feel matters.

Honestly, I don't think any of it does amount to much really. Things in the world are always going to happen even if we do not go out of our ways to craft our destiny. Sure there are a bunch of image quotes out there that would preach to you otherwise. The "You are the Master of your own Destiny" bull crap. Do you actually think any of that is true?

How many of us can truly say that they have always wanted to be where they are right now in life? Did you actually hope to have this dead end job? Or live in that garbage dump of an apartment? Or have such a destructive relationship with your folks? Or such a prick of a spouse? No one plans on getting screwed by life. It just happens. Some Master of Destiny we are.

We are all just specks of dust in the grand scale of things. And by that I am in no ways proposing the theory that there is some grand plan for all that is happening around us. Really? What was the grand plan in a four year old girl getting violated by a tire wrench? Or when a douche bag wins a jackpot only to drink himself to death?

There is no grand plan to anything. You are no master of your own destiny. Things are, just because they are. You can only pretend to have any semblance of control over it. But in just a fraction of a second, your life as you know it can be turned upside down without you even realizing it.

The best that anyone can really hope for is to be able to live a decent life, be good to each other, not make many enemies, and die knowing that you've known true joy during you existence on this planet. I could add love to that equation, but I guess that is a conversation for a different time altogether. Love as its defined now, doesn't really exist. Love is just best form companionship that does not depend on some sort of greed. If it does, it isn't love.

I won't pretend to know what the whole point of our existence is. But I will surely say this much that. Our life doesn't have to mean anything. And if we keep fixating on giving it a meaning. All we would be accomplishing is watching the days go by and suddenly we are a bunch of 80 year olds with a lot of unfulfilled dreams.

Today, stop corrupting your minds with unrealistic mumbo jumbo.