When the scales fall from our eyes

There is something in adversity; it makes you see the world as it is, shorn of all its trappings. And what you see is nothing to rave about. But then, you have known it all along haven’t you? That the world is a sorry place, where little goes aright. In your stupidity you ignored it and tried to cook up something fantastic in its place. Some call it creating your own reality. May be there is nothing wrong with it. You have seen madmen live like that, they are comfortable with what they have brought forth from themselves and they are not bothered about what the rest of the world thinks.

It’s a good state to be in. Every single feeling is then self- made; every single action then is genuine. There is no burden of tradition or custom or social norms sitting inside and criticizing everything that you do. You are jolly and delighted at what you do. Even when you cry, you do it with sheer abandon; you don’t try to suppress it and act happy.

Take the case of the ‘normal’ people, they are always on tenterhooks. They can’t do a single thing without making themselves sick about the consequences of what they are doing. The thing may be as silly as driving a nail into a piece of wall. It’s easy, the world thinks, you have the needed strength, added determination, you have the hammer , of course the nail and you have got the piece of wall to do all the mischief. What could be easier that driving a nail into it? Nothing really, nothing!

But have you tried it yet? Well go on and try it, just once. The experience would teach you something, or else you would have to be a carpenter who has it as second nature by not thinking on it anymore. To him it has become a mechanical activity, requiring no reflection and very little involvement.

My point is, as long as we are rolling along without any tough obstacle to scale, we are comfortable with our fantastic concept of life and in this we are not very different from the madmen. They are fixated on some particular thing and we are on several. The sad thing is, both the groups are not really free, they become somehow conditioned from within or without and go on performing things that the really sane would rather not.

This is where the benefits of real adversity come to the fore. When one is jolted out of the strange dream that one is having then some filament falls from our sight and everything becomes clear. You realize that there is nothing in this world great as you have imagined and it is and has been drab and dull and painful all along. You lose faith in everything that’s around, you see that nothing is reliable and no one can be trusted.

That brings on some hard thinking. And thought in that form does not fail to bring you wisdom!