I happened to encounter a quote of Norman cousins(great American author and journalist) in “The Times Of India “ this morning , it said ”death is not the greatest loss in life; the greatest loss is what dies insides us while we live”. The moment I read this, I was taken aback- how came I have never thought about life in that light and oh God, how important that is!
Some people may say that it is a pessimistic view, some may call it a loser’s perspective. But a few of us who has the courage and strength to go inside, inside the mind and heart, will stand up and say that this is one of the most honest and sincere assessment of human life. Yes, to a certain extent this is a gloomy and depressing definition of our life but is it not true that the gloom is our own creation, the depression is our deserved award, a deserved award for what we have been doing, with all our might since the time immemorial.
When I was a child, I never felt a single moment of bleakness or disconsolation. It will not be true to say that children don’t have problems: I had mine. Getting lesser marks than expected, the shame of losing a game to someone far inferior to me, the ghastly cuts in pocket money every now and then etc, they were all gigantic questions to be answered at that age. It is true that they all made me sad but the anguish never lasted more than a couple hours. And everything would come to normalcy like nothing had happened. Every day passed like a festival celebration; no pain of past, no worry of the future. The present was the only thing that mattered and everything else was a mere trifle. Small things, trifling things used to provide with enormous amount of happiness; a small toy, a cheap ice-cream, a few good words from the teachers or parents and such inconsequential things were enough to fill my heart with happiness. The horizon of my sense of achievement and loss was fairly limited. In short I was pretty happy at that time without any ‘valid reason’.
But, when I became a fully grown up man, my brain took over the reins from my heart and started to take control of my senses; my sense of happiness and my sense of dejection. And what changed now was, the disconsolation stayed longer and ecstasy faded like the waves on the serene water. Now the small setbacks produced enormous dejection and the major achievements produced a little joy. Every foul word spoken by any foul man stayed in my heart and every word of encouragement evaporated quickly like camphor on fire. In simple words the happiness of the childhood was nowhere to be found.
Now, I want to raise a question: can life be imagined without happiness, can we find happiness without finding what was lost while we were transitioning from childhood to manhood. What was that one thing that we lost then. Not just for me, for you, it stands true for every one that we lose our innocence while we grow up and when we are fully grown up we are completely devoid of that and hence all our problems. I must tell you that I have seen people who somehow have managed to keep their childhood innocence intact, and by heaven, I have seen them as happy as a five years old kid.
The loss of our childhood innocence is a major setback to us, it takes away from us all our inherent virtues like honesty, truthfulness, passion, compassion, our positive sense of pain, the positive aspect of our confidence and every positive thing that we have.
When we die we lose only one thing- our breath but when we lose our virtues we lose all that make man similar to the ALL MIGHTY. Death can only make us die once but loss of our natural instincts makes us die every moment till our corporal frame is in existence.
My friends this article is getting bigger and bigger so I will have to conclude it, but my sincere salute to MR. NORMAN COUSINS. He has given me something very-very precious to ponder upon.
Yours TRULY,
AVINASH RANJAN.
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