Raison d


Why do you live? If you have no answer to this, there is something wrong with you. After all, a life spent in the pursuit of nothing is no life at all. We need a reason to live or the days will just pass by like the monotonous cadence of a small town drum corps.

Quite frankly, I myself have no answer to this question. Once, probably I had a few but those goals are done away with. They are either unreachable or in most cases, no longer feasible. So in a way, I am currently living a hollow existence. How’s that for irony?

As life progresses, however, we find our reasons. A man suddenly with a daughter or a son for that matter; a man accidentally cast in an unforeseen situation would have plenty of reasons to find his raison d’ĂȘtre. It changes as the seasons. The ticking of the clock only serves to remind us that like time, things are always changing. While there may be absolutes like the love of a father to his child, everything else will always be shifting.  

We are transients in life. We move with the flow, here the next and there the moment after. And the difference between here and there is vast, despite our desire for constancy. Priorities and desires change with our temperaments or our lots in life. 

Happiness. We all want it. It is a human desire born of the pain we are born to endure. We hope for the elimination of sadness, thus the lure of religion. It would be safe to say that is our underlying raison d’ĂȘtre. But happiness takes many definitions. Some equate it with wealth, others with fame, others with love (which can also be equated to many things), with a fulfilled life and other selfish desires (they are really all selfish if taken in their true context). It drives us. The profession we choose even if it means denying the profession we really want. The patience we exhibit at work, the drive that wakes us every morning at 430AM even when we want to sleep in for just an hour more. The fake smiles we give our in-laws, the veiled sarcasm that no one at work ever gets, all these are for this purpose. Even kids who are supposed to be borne out of love are mere instruments for our personal happiness. (Insert rebuttals here).

Who can blame us? 

This is our nature. To go against it is to go against the whole meaning of human existence. But we make do. That is also our nature.

Then again, it is probably the spice that makes life the way it is. 

And maybe that's what it's all about…

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