by: Mohd Ishaq Shah
“Water, water, everywhere, not a drop to drink,
Water, water, everywhere all the boards shrink.”
– S.T Coleridge
Life is a very complex phenomenon/process that requires one to travel through a zigzag track with various blind curves and bumps that put us in suspense and swinging position and uncertainty prevails there always. The quoted lines are from a poem ‘Rhyme of Ancient Mariner’ by a famous poet of 19th century England – Samuel Taylor Coleridge which manifests the complexity of life. The characters are caught in a wide sea and amidst severe heat, feeling very hot and extremely thirsty in the largest water body- the sea that is full of water, but not a potable one for being the saline in nature. So life is metaphorically compared to a sea where the Mariner (Every Man) is caught in such a situation that despite being in the crowd he feels all alone at certain occasions. The poet further explores the situation in the following lines.
We stuck,
Not breath, nor motion,
Like a painted ship upon a painted Ocean.
Here both the sea and the ship are compared with the artificial ones hence highlighting the helplessness of man in the wide world that is full of the human race. According to Socrates- the father of Western ethics “Unexamined life is not worth living” For him, our life’s work (his idea of a good life) is to question one’s thinking rationally, and so to ‘know thyself’ through a relentless spirit of philosophical inquiry and dialogue with others. So it is obvious that a worthy life is certain to be full of examinations and tough tests. In the Anglo-American tradition, William James held that life is meaningful and worth living because of the spiritual order in which we should believe. Yet many other writers and philosophers present a different viewpoint about life. William Shakespeare compares life with a walking shadow.
Out, out, brief candle!
Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more, it is a tale,
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
This is one of the most commonly quoted quotes in respect of life’s nature. Here the poet tries to say that life is transitory like a walking shadow. It lasts only up to the falling of light on a solid object. No sooner the light is off the shadow disappears. It is a poor player upon a stage that is visible on stage for an hour and then exits and is heard no more. Life is like a tale narrated by an idiot. And there is another quote that is symmetrical with this one. In his comedy, “As You Like It” Shakespeare says:
All the world is a stage,
All the men and women are mere players,
And one man in his life plays many parts,
He acts being seven ages,
Once upon a time a lady came to Lord Buddha and asked him to give her a medicine that would cure her dead son. Lord Buddha asked the lady to get a handful of mustard from such a family wherein no one must have died. The lady went from door to door, but nobody gave her the mustard. The people would prevent her from burning their injuries afresh as there was no such family where one or the other had not died. So the lady returned back very despaired and reflected upon the street lights that were flickering and the light was going on and off. She realized that life is like a street light that shines and goes off. In this way, Lord Buddha convinced her about the reality of life in the sense that death is definite and everyone has to accept it.
In 1950, Samuel Bucket came to the limelight after the publication of his Avant-Grade Play- Waiting for Godot. This is the play that fetched the writer’s Nobel Prize for literature in 1952. The play on the surface level has no complex plot. Only a few characters are involved. And the discourse of action is like this: Nothing happens; no one comes and no one goes. Only the two characters; estragon and Vladimir are waiting for Godot to come who never comes. The writer here conveys the message that this world is all null and void. Hence the life in it is without meaning and it is all hollow spheres. And the man is waiting for Godot who never comes.
In 1952, came, another novel by Earnest Hemmingway that would be the most philosophical novel in the making it focuses upon the consistency and willpower of the man while struggling in this world that is full of forceful waves like the sea wherein the main protagonist of the novel- Santiago- goes fish hunting on the beach of a sea and struggles continuously for 84 days and ultimately succeeds in catching a Marline fish. No sooner the fish is trapped a stark comes and devours it. The fisherman is sad, but not remorseful as he gets the Skelton of the fish if not flesh. The theme of the novel is “Man can be destroyed, but not defeated” It is all about destiny, fate, and man’s role in this life that no ultimate finality.
Mystic Miracle, daughter of Delight, Life, thou ecstasy,
Let the radius of thy flight
Be eternity.
On thy wings thou bearest high Glory and disdain,
Godhead and mortality, Ecstasy and pain.
Take me in thy wild embrace without weak reserve
Body dire and unveiled face; Faint not, Life, nor swerve.
All thy bliss I would explore, All thy tyranny.
Cruel like the lion’s roar, Sweet like springtide be.
Like a Titan I would take,
Like a God enjoy,
Like a man contend and make, Revel like a boy.
More I will not ask of thee, Nor my fate would choose;
King or conquered let me be, Live or lose.
Even in rags I am a god;
Fallen, I am divine;
High I triumph when down-trod, Long I live when slain.
The ending couple is the most striking one which gives the crux of the whole poem. This worldly life is short and the life to come is eternal. So this life is like death and death gives way to eternity. Sri Aurobindo opens his poem with the traditional understanding of life and death as one in which human beings fear “death” as the end of “life.”The invocation of “our thought and consciousness” along. Sri Aurobindo follows the opening lines with “two opposites” that have its “long- hidden pages opened. In this poem, life is described not as an entity but as an experience, one that should be lived with courage, dedication, without hurry, and with a clear sense of purpose that drives the mind and soul.
The author can be mailed at ishaq7007@gmail.com
