Sunday, August 17, 2008

Why so happy?

I am sick and tired of haiku phiosophies.

The words below are from an actual post I have come across (and a very popular blog at it):

Its ok...Happens...Dont worry...Stay happy...Simple things...Just be...
It's the simple things in life we forget...
Why do you make something so easy so complicated?
Searching for what's right in front of your face
But you can't see it

(Except for the last, all the three colons - '...' -belong to the author)

Well, it is complicated! In case you did not notice. Your loved ones hurt you the most, 80% of child molestations happen from someone very close, the more mediocre you are - the better your chances to succeed, saints are crucified and the devil rules.

What the fuck is right in my face? What the hell is that supposed to mean, in the first place?

Little things indeed. I guess, the author means the flowers, the sandals, the coffee in the morning sort of bullshit. what about the big things? what if you have a low self-esteem and have the biggest bully of a boss - does the morning coffee whiff take away the dread of the pounding you're going to get in the office in a couple of hours?
Does the beauty of the bright neons distract the drained emptiness of a Japanese worker commuting from office to work and back for more than eight hours a day on a sub?
Or a fresh blue poppy relieve the bent back of a hill woman trudging ten miles to her hovel with two LPG cylinders on her back?
What about the loneliness and desparation of a small-town girl sharing a 8by8 feet room with three strangers and being eve-teased on the midnite trudge back?
What about the man running from pillar to post for his pension?

All examples have been taken from people I have met, seen or communicated with.

I don't believe in screaming against the inexorable cruelty of existence all the time (or as Vishesh pointed: the pitliess fact of the survival of the fittest), but reducing it to such simplistic clap-trap reeks of the urban self-contained hollow-bricked wall that we, the privilged, have built around us, cemented with the smug generalization of our miniscule reality to the the broader one beyond, and making-believe that the world is as simple as a Disney flick. It's not.
For many of us, the big things - fending for yourself and your family, keeping the threadbare veil of dignity, rotikapdaamakaan, saving for the future - is an everyday challenge. And I am not being a pink 'a tragedy is a tragedy if it happens only below the poverty line' asshole. Every struggle is a tragedy since struggle means sacrifice; and sacrifice means giving up something. And life is struggle - for most of us. What lies in front of our eyes is despair and all the reasons to give up. We hope despite what we see, and not because.

1 comment:

Saphira for now... said...

Agree with most of your thoughts except that "Every struggle is a tragedy since struggle means sacrifice". A struggle can also be a fight to not sacrifice what you dont want to. It always brings tension along with it but not necessarily ends in tragedy.