New Year's eve is always a great time to do some self introspection. No it's not what you think. One can be all 'deep' and 'intellectual' without the influence of alcohol. However, there is something about this meaningless and arbitrary event which brings out the best in creative thought, as we try and take a hold of the year that went by, the year to come, and without realizing, we go far beyond the threshold of our lives and wonder about things in general ; Musings.
It always baffles me how paradoxical life is. Or how life as I understand it, is. In mythology they say that, the human form on Earth is the lowest form that a soul can take, except animals of course. On the Earth, humans may be the superior species, but the objective of a human soul is to be free from the cycle of rebirth. This requires the evolving of our consciousness so that we may see much beyond what is seen (talking in riddles I know). Although this maybe just a Hindu perspective, even in other religions, a lot of stress is placed on how we should listen to the inner voice inside us. Our conscience. Having an active conscious is a trickier thing than it may seem. Most of us live our lives never having heard our conscience ever. Yes, we probably heard it in our childhood, but we hardly hear it anymore. So basically, the more we listen to our conscience, the higher beings we become (I don't mean it in a proud way, but a way in which we may be insulated from pain and suffering of the world)
Consider this scenario.
We have three people and they have awesome names A, B and C. A has an active conscience, B has a passive conscience and C, well we don't know about C.
C is the butt of all jokes in class. Every person makes fun of him/her. B is the front runner while making jokes about C. In the spur of the moment, A makes fun of C too!
A immediately knows that what he/she did was wrong because their conscience played it out to them. What A goes through from hereafter, is mental trauma, an enormous amount of guilt and self cursing. What B goes through, is fun, happiness,laughing etc. My example must sound childish to you. It might even sound impossible that a person must beat himself up for just making fun of another person. But as I said, the conscience is a tricky thing. It hits you like nothing else.
The point I'm trying to make is that we think of happiness as the aim of my life. Whatever we want to be, whether it be rich, successful, whatever our aims may be, in the end we want to be happy. B remained happy, oblivious to his/her conscience or the feelings of others. A was tormented by his/her guilt.
What are we missing here? Having an active conscience makes you a better human being. But it also means that you'll likely be tormented by the same conscience, questioning every thing that you do, the right and wrong of it, and if by chance you did something wrong, beat yourself over it. So is it that good people can't be happy? Do they live their life tormented by their conscience reminding them of their misdemeanors? Redemption, you may say! Apologize to the concerned party and all will be well. But sometimes that balm also doesn't work on the conscience.
Coming back to the thick of it, is it safe to draw an analogy that good people are seldom happy? Or do we need to redefine every thing? Do we redefine what goodness is? Or is happiness overrated? Is it not the keystone to living a good life? Why is the Universe paradoxical?
Food for thought!
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