Life And Its Ironies

The moment you are born, death awaits you! What a terrible opening "sentence," pun intended. Everything we see has its dark side. Day and night, the obvious. The less obvious scenarios, create drama in our lives. For example, Imelda Marcos has a million and one pairs of shoes (slightly exaggerated)! And look at the picture on the right! This is hardly "harmony of the opposites." This is life's injustices. This is the irony of life. The Chinese "Yin-Yang" dichotomy embraces this concept of the generosity of life against the brutality of existence.

Great teachers of the East shared their wisdom and knowledge with those who cared to listen. Live a life of peace, goodwill, without harming others, it would be less likely that life would give you a raw deal. Otherwise, be prepared to suffer.

Let me not be philosophical or religious. Let us look and see. Imagine we float high up in the sky and then look down on the earth. We see the animal kingdom acting out the theme of "the survival of the fittest". The fitter eating the less fit. But all end up in the chain of food for sustenance. Then we see the horrors of human hatred acting out in revenge, in the name of race, religion, ideology, and whatever nonsense. As if these are not enough, the natural catastrophes and fatal accidents causing hardship and deaths. On one side we see the lavish cuisines of the rich and famous, while on the other side we see the starvation and famines of deprived peoples. This is what we see. The truth of this merciless world. And not forgetting the diseases and sicknesses of mankind, causing extreme pain and agony to both patients and love ones. What a world, a merciless world!.

Each day a lot of food is wasted. We never know what is hunger until we are really hungry. Then again, how many of you have experienced real extreme hunger? I never experienced REAL extreme hunger in my life and I hope I shall never experience real extreme hunger in the future. I was told by an old Chinese man who came from China, how his wife saw hungry people cutting up dead human bodies for food. When one is really hungry, the tree barks and even a blade of grass is food.

I make it a point never to waste food. I always finish my food

Wait a minute. Take a look at the picture on the right.

Do you know how many people have to work like hell for us to enjoy our lives? Take a simple birthday dinner party at a restaurant. Think of the hours of preparation, the presentation, and the final clearing and washing up. Of course they are paid for the work; but still somebody has got to do the dirty job. Have you ever thought of this?

In a competition when we win, the others have to lose. In a disaster, when we find to our relief that our people are safe and sound, the others had to die. Are we being selfish and insensitive, or are we just acting out life as it is meant to be? Just like what Shakespeare declared that the world's a stage?

Do you know how we can feel "happiness?" It is because we know what sadness is.

And the greatest irony in life? While being alive, we can't escape death!

What do you think of life? I am not being pessimistic or negative, but I'm a realist.

When life gives us cherries and honey, power and money, that's life. When life gives us pain and agony, that's also life. Time to step back and contemplate. How much had we done harm to others? How much had we helped others? Where do we stand in this phenomenon called "life"?

You would have seen the above photo of the African child and the waiting vulture, many times. When I first saw it, my conscience was pricked. What about you?

This picture has a greater story to tell, the tragedy of life. The photographer was Kevin Carter who committed suicide not long after he took that picture. You can read the story in my blog here: "The photo that struck your conscience."

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