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Here's what I wrote for a form I had to fill on "Coffee has caffeine, water has pesticides, the road can kill you—is life worth the risk?"
"Life, like any physical phenomena, has a dual nature. Like the particles exist as a particle as well as a wave, life has its ups and downs; the means for sustainability have their advantages and disadvantages. Life exists as a careful balance, with all aspects interrelated and intertwined. Like every particle has an anti-particle that eliminates it, life and death complement each other. Each aspect of life, the living ecosystem, the noosphere, the human revolts and submission, all reach their climax and then recede, like the yin and yang. For every movement of human thought taking shape into ideas, and its spread throughout the world, the seed of a counter-movement is sowed. The journey however, through time is that of reaching new frontiers in knowledge and thought, in the understanding of the world around us, in revealing the secrets of nature, and through all this is the spirit to know, to become aware, to gain.
Similarly, the negative attitude in the question is the sowing of the seed of ignorance, and in a broader sense, a response to the ubiquitous atrocities of the ever changing human behavior, of terrorism, of pursuing global dominance through every and any means. This negative human nature in the implied question is, however, not negative in the sense of being bad or unhealthy, but is the beginning of establishing peace by bringing about a revolution. For it is only when the spirit feels defeated does the will to be arises and takes over in order to bring about a change. ‘Life is worth the risk’, is a statement that is borne out of this will that pushes life towards a fight for survival, borne out of this will to win, when once defeated. It’s the dual, the opposite of hopelessness. As the Chinese philosophical book, the ‘Tao te Ching’, commonly known in the west as the ‘I Ching’, goes on to explain –
“After a time of decay comes the turning point. The powerful light that has been banished returns. There is movement, but it is not brought about by force….The movement is natural, arising spontaneously. For this reason the transformation of the old becomes easy. The old is discarded and the new is introduced. Both measures accord with the time; therefore no harm results.”
Those who think that life is not worth the risk, and still go on living, are even worse than the dead. They are living this life of nothingness. Death is not the ending of life, the ending of pain, misery, and conflict. Living in this nothingness, with the view that life’s not worth it, is a form of escape, and like any other form of escapism, be it through alcohol or sex, this life remains a part of that misery, of eternal conflict. This form of escapism, which most of us undertake at least subtly, can only come to an end through choiceless awareness. The desire to be this, to be that, to become like him or her, to have this or have that, is what keeps us in a constant flow of conflict and misery. For we are ever projecting the images of our own future, and not living in the present, and in this cycle we forget to stay happy. This misery can end through choiceless awareness, which doesn’t mean that we should try to be aware of our experiences and have the desire to change those for our own good, for experiences are a product of time too, and this desire still brings conflict. Choiceless awareness means to be aware without the action of thought or of the mind, for thought is a product of time itself, and only when we have choiceless awareness can we be free to experience the timelessness."
All of this came from my heart, from what I believed in, and still do....Writing this put some things in perspective.
Firstly, I was at least partially right in believing that my parents were bringing me to this nothingness, this place where living in the moment, living for the moment, being aware, making my own choices and learning from them were restricted, for my dad was not ready to accept change (which I think most of us are not ready to). However, this was probably not the whole truth, for my illness started long before this belief, and the belief was distorted and amplified by the illness. This 'fight' with my parents was not the reason for my illness, as R.D. Laing would make us believe. (For the uninitiated, Dr. R.D. Laing believed that schizophrenia occured due to the family/ society...a reaction to the social circumstances, which is something hard core psychologists still believe). The reason is, I believe, still genetics (to some extent), though I still wait for the whole truth to reveal itself.
One of the things that still bother me when I get slightly paranoid is that people are following me. Yesterday, for instance, I was alone at home and a bit tense due to my upcoming exams, and mentally tired to some extent because of which even the slightest noise coming from neighboring houses made me jump. I went and checked out all the rooms to see whether there were any robbers, treading lightly but firmly, ready to strike if the need be. However, an interesting realization came to me after that when I decided to listen to songs at a loud volume to muffle the other sounds. I have been doing this through all the voices that I hear, trying to muffle them out, and then, the songs start repeating in my head, the same line goes over and over again due to my OCD, and I try to stop them. My aim to keep the paranoia under control is successful, but the OCD takes over from there. It’s a vicious cycle. Both ways, I’m unable to concentrate; either always scared of being attacked, or fighting with the repetitions. My health is also affected when I do some mental work, like studying. If I am able to concentrate while studying, I get so mentally exhausted that during the breaks I take in-between, I cannot function (think, speak, or listen to), leave aside going over what I’ve studied and applying my mind to work creatively on it, something that I could do till I was 13. And throughout my pre-diagnosis time, I had been fighting with myself, asking myself why I can’t do it, work like I used to earlier….
That was the realization (which comes frequently as I tend to get better and then fluctuate a bit). Now, I would like to tell all my friends out here, who have been asking me why I feel it necessary to chew nicotine gum even when I’ve enough will power to stop it whenever I want to. As is widely known, nicotine helps in reducing the symptoms of schizophrenia to some extent. The reason can be understood as follows. The countless cells in the body are enclosed in cell walls or membranes, and each cell has specific ‘doors’ with which it can interact with other cells. Some of these doors that interact only with specific molecules (or ligands) are known as channels. Signals travel through these channels into the cell to trigger a change in the cell’s functioning. For example, at the neuro-muscular junction (where the nerves meet the muscles), the nerves may release acetylcholine, which tells the muscles to contract. These channels are found throughout the body, constructed of a relatively small number of ‘Lego blocks’. One such Lego block, called Alpha-7 is found throughout the brain and nervous system. Now, interestingly, the most consistent genetic difference in schizophrenics is in the gene for Alpha-7, which causes structural and functional changes, effectively decreasing the efficiency with which the cell receives the neural signal. Alpha-7 is one of the receptors that binds nicotine, and hence nicotine is almost 10 times as effective in binding and activating the receptors as acetylcholine. Thus, high levels of nicotine in the body restore the functioning of cells to a normal state which lack in Alpha-7 acetylcholine receptors. Hence the reason for chewing nicotine gum, which is not only harmless, but also extremely effective in allowing me to function normally.
Metallica
Another thing I want to share with you all is the poetry in the songs of Metallica. Just had a chat with Paula yesterday, and she said that she likes the poetry in the soft songs she hears, and I told her that I like to listen to Metallica because their songs mark the struggle through my illness and the will to live. Given below are the lyrics of their song ‘Sad but True’. Let me explain how I perceive it because of my illness…
The song starts with a person telling another that I’m the one who is behind all that you do; I make your life possible, and I am your savior from those who are against you…. You are the mask behind which I reside and manipulate you. When I used to listen to it before my diagnosis, the ‘voice’ who guided me constantly towards the struggle would say all this to me. He was a separate entity, a guiding force that I heeded. I had to follow him to lead the world to victory in this battle of survival for the world for which I was fighting alone, and in which he was guiding me. It is sung with the spirit of pain and rebellion, with a wanting of freedom, as was the anger in me for fighting alone, with a sole guiding spirit and helper….The voice then goes on to say that that he ‘no longer cares’, as he told me to kill myself, again and again, till I heeded.
The pain, however, became excruciatingly visible after I learnt about my illness and listened to the last paragraph carefully. Go on…read it.
Sad but True
Hey, hey, hey….
I’m your life,
I’m the one, who takes you there,
Hey, I’m your life
I’m the one who cares
They, they’ll betray
I’m your only true friend now
They, they’ll betray
I’m forever there
I’m your dream,
Make it real
I’m you eyes
When you must steal
I’m your pain when you can’t feel
Sad but true
I’m your dream
Mind astray
I’m your eyes while you’re away
I’m your pain while you repay
You know it’s sad but true
Sad but true…
You, you’re my mask
You’re my cover my shelter
You, you’re my mask
You’re the ones who’s blamed
Do, do my work
Do my dirty work scapegoat
Do, do my deeds
For you’re the one who’s shamed
I’m your dream
Make it real
I’m your eyes
When you must steal
I’m your pain when u can’t feel
Sad but true
I’m your dream
Mind astray
I’m your eyes while you’re away
I’m your pain while u repay
Sad but true
Ooh, so sad but true
I’m your dream
I’m your eyes
I’m your pain
I’m your dream
I’m your eyes
I’m your pain
You know it’s sad but true
Hate, hate
I’m your hate
I’m your hate when you want love
Pay, pay the price
Pay for nothings fair
Hey, hey, I’m your life
I’m the one who took u there
Hey, I’m your life
And I no longer care
I’m your dream
Make it real
I’m your eyes
When u must steal
I’m your pain when u can’t feel
Sad but true
I’m your truth
Telling lies
I’m your reasoned alibis
I’m inside, open your eyes
I’m you…
Sad but true…
(Note: Lyrics as I can make it out by listening to the song.)
I've been reading Krishnamurti regularly now. A piece of dialogues at a time. I had some interesting insights.
I remember thinking, when I was 13 that, one should make all these corrupt politicians of India stand in a line, and then give me a gun to shoot them all! I also thought that if I had my way, I would assume dictatorship to bring the country back to peace. How wrong I had been, and I have learnt it through the following years. As Krishnamurti pointed out in one of his dialogues, "Means and ends are not seperate, they are a joint phenomenon; the means create the end. Through violence there can never be peace; a police State cannot produce a peaceful citizen; through compulsion, freedom cannot be achieved. A classless society cannot be established if the party is all-powerful, it can never be the outcome of dictatorship."
In another interesting reading of my own revelations on my anger, Krishnamurti: "Anger has that peculiar quality of isolation; like sorrow, it cuts one off, and for the time being, at least, all relationship comes to an end. Anger has the temporary strength and vitality of the isolated. There is strange despair in anger; for isolation is despair. The anger of disappointement, of jealousy, of the urge to wound, gives a violent release whose pleasure is self-justification."