Fears ‘R’ Life

I be seriously strange being! Here’s why… People usually are afraid of death but I have discovered that I am not. I am terrified however, of life. Here’s how I see it!

Death is invulnerable! A hard fact! Unmoving, unchangeable… It is there and it always will be wherever we may turn around. It may be sudden and quick or painfully slow and long drawn to the point where we can feel each breath being drawn out almost to breaking point before being taken in just as painfully. Each of us know it is our end and there is a time and place for it decided the moment we first embrace life. It is a knowledge that stays with us in our every waking moment and every flicker of dreams behind our lids when we sleep. If it is accepted a fact and so real then what is the point of fearing it.

Fear is of the unknown. Something we haven’t quite been able to measure or evaluate. It is uncertain, unascertained, undefined… It’s beginning and end as inexplicable as the causes behind the creation of human life and thought and therein lays my problem. Life is all those things and so much more. Similar only to the extent of the differences that compose it for each of us; living is divergent almost shockingly in its appearance and its rationale. Each of us justifies life as something unique that fits in with how we perceive it. It can be as large as our imagination or as limited as the end of our nose. Life draws not just from the individual who it belongs to but from the people around us, from our homes, our schools, our offices, our society and the world. It doesn’t stop there but our life influences and is influenced by atmosphere, the moon, the sun… space…

How do you begin to understand the implication of the responsibility that something this big lays on you? I have a hard time being held accountable to my parents for something as trivial as my result or my curfew which if I’m blasé enough to say so doesn’t really concern anyone else let alone affecting other people in the grand scheme of things. But think on the greater meaning of life and what it is supposed to signify, I almost panic.

How many things, how many actions, how many words and how many thoughts can I be held accountable for? All the morals of all the stories lead to my thinking that life is some sort of never-ending cycle which is why we hear of what goes around comes around I suppose… And if that is true, I don’t know where a carelessly thrown remark could end up back in my face in the form of something cruel or hurtful… So, would that mean that I am responsible for what comes to me?

Where do fate and destiny come in then? And what about Qudrat? As Muslims, these things are as ingrained in the twists and turns of our lives that at times we tend to discount the affluence of our own deeds or misdeeds in that context… Sometimes I believe there is no free will and no such thing as a free action. Everything even down to our subconscious flicker of an eyelash or an instinctive reaction to flinch from heat is preordained but if it is preordained then that means that everything is already working to a grand plan and each of our actions and thoughts are just playing out a script prepared by a greater power but if that is the case, why then are we to be held accountable in the afterlife for things that we have done…

Major realization… 1:30 in the a.m. is not a good time to start thinking this stuff… Can be seriously injurious to one’s sense of stability and mental balance! Definitely not a good idea when you have an exam to conduct the next morning along with a long list of errands that include going to banks and travel agencies…

Let’s see if I have the focus to return to the point I was trying to make here… not that it will make much of a difference to my long standing but recently realized belief that I fear life!