Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Sculpting life...


Your mother’s love destroyed Maria; her hatred towards you made you a stronger and better person. They say it takes a baptism of fire to make sand into glass. Lesson I learnt today: Sometimes we have to count misfortunes among our blessings.

I left this comment on Sarah’s post some day’s back. Pleej don't blame me for turning a lil bit philosophical...I do think sometimes too, like when I have a cavity in the tooth and it hurts too much to talk :p And if you still feel like cursing me after reading this, blame it on the post "Forgive me" by
Mathew which made me post this after trashing it.

The above comment was nothing but the realization, that there was some sense into the ‘nonsense’ we thought we were taught in Catechism classes. Sounds philosophical and all that blah I know, but it is a hard fact and now that I have had the time to chew on it, it makes a lot of sense to me.

How many of us learn a lesson from kindness? Very few I am sure. But when someone is cruel to you, you make sure that you are not cruel to others because you know it hurts. Someone’s cruelty teaches you a lesson. So should you curse God/fate that he forsake you or thank him for this opportunity to learn to be kind to others and in turn become a better human being?

When someone gives you a helping hand you take it without a thought and a murmured “thanks’ as a formality. But when you have experienced loneliness and helplessness, you appreciate friendship and a helping hand more and you reciprocate it when you see a person in a similar predicament.

And the list is endless. We curse God/fate when things don’t go right….but if things were always to go right with us, would we be human at all? I don’t think so. It is adversity that shapes all of us, not good fortune.

Have you noticed that the some of the nicest people are the ones who have gone through so much travail in their lives?

So where does that leave us? We all want comforts, a happy life…but if you haven’t experienced discomfort and sadness, would we even recognize the feeling of comfort and happiness?

There can be a whole lot of arguments against the above….like so many people living in perpetual sadness, hunger, pain etc. with no respite or hope of happiness, enough food and freedom from pain etc…..some people even turn antisocial due poverty, hunger etc. I acknowledge that.

But at present I am only focusing on what I have observed above and the fact that when we are happy, we should also be grateful for the feelings of sadness and despair that enabled us to appreciate happiness.

(p.s when you are throwing eggs and tomatoes at me, pleeeej make sure you throw in a couple of green chillies too, I like my omelet spicy…. and pleej to make sure the eggs are fresh and tomatoes ripe and firm. A little bit of coriander leaves will do just fine too but if you don’t have it I will not hold it against you)

17 comments:

Alexis said...

Waiting for the eggs, tomatoes, green chillies and coriander leaves that I have ordered :-) Just kidding.

What you have said is true to some extend. It is the adversity and unhappy events that make many people strong. But many who do not have the courage, will power or faith might take an escape route.

Also, you can definitely learn from kindness and goodness. It depends on the person who is at the receiving end.

If he or she is strong and smart, then irrespective of the circumstances, and whether or not one has faced adversity good lessons will be learned.

If our parents are good examples, we will learn a lot from them. This can and should be a pleasant experience. But sometimes children born to very nice people turn bad and criminal and vice versa.

So I don't know whether it is correct to generalize the theory. Yes there are proverbs saying that one realizes the value of something only when it is lost and I completely agree with that.

But it would be better if we can learn the value of things without having to lose it.

£ijo Isac said...

Hmm, Well, you are in fact right about the fact that to appreciate comfort and happiness you should have experienced discomfort and sadness. However no body knows when the happiness and comfort are going to come when they are in despair or rather whether it is oing to come at all.It is always nice to say all these when you are happy and content.

This post seems to have been written by Angel Doc rather than by Sliverine and the pic seems to be in sync with the doc's style of writing . Silverine ko philosophy bhi aatha hein :)

Anonymous said...

Wonferful post. very refreshing. Your thoughts have so much of depth ...

Jagan said...

onnumey puriyala ...totally tangent to head ..

Sarah said...

I will have to say..that what I am today is because of what I had to endure..
Although most of the times I do wonder, why did I have to go through all these, just to learn that life is indeed beautiful..

Mind Curry said...

*swish* tomatoes!!!
*splotch* eggs!!
*pling* chillies!

:)

first of all, sarah's writing is one of the most intriguing and horribly real, but amazing thing i have read among bloggers..its scares me at times its based out of someones real life..but then i just realize she is this really sweet person and then i feel better.

i absolutely agree that adversity in life usually brings out better persons and builds characters..but it also depends on the dose and rate..too much too fast can be detrimental..if you are talking about it in terms of a lesson or school, then its good. but in real life it depends on the extent to which ones life is affected.
it also has a great deal to do with the circumstances of the persons life and people around him.

i mean..if you think its extreme circumstances that make terrorists and the like.

i agree to the philo of realizing value only when its lost..thats so very true. and i keep wondering about it..how it takes a big loss for human beings to realize small things in life..and i have so many real life examples to quote..

what i have written is similar to what you have written..but i guess in my own thoughts generated after reading yours..so this is not any counter..but just my two cents..

ok i like my eggs without onions, a dash of pepper and a sprinkle of chillies..i dont think i can manage more than one though..

p.s. a woman in hurry yesterday, philosophy today..what tomorrow? rock n roll i hope..

Anonymous said...

Sarah s blog is what I wait for everyday...It used to affect me a lot... on how much she had to endure.. Could not imagine how a mom and sis cud be so. But now ...maybe I should think of bad things in a different angle..I used to follow this approach when i lose something .. ..Thanks Silver... Gonna view my problems with a new eye...
And gotta try omlettes with coriander leaves..
-Vaish

Anonymous said...

True. But sometimes the pains the humiliation , the sadness , they break people. Kill their courage. It seems that suicides are on the rise. And i think suicide becomes an option when you want to escape and not hold on and fight back.

Each day spent in misery brings out something new deep from our insides. We should have a cool head to look at the 'thing' see what it is and use it accordingly. Err.. thats what I think :) Might not be true.

silverine said...

Alexis: "
But it would be better if we can learn the value of things without having to lose it.
" Very true!!

Li: You do not have to wait for happiness and comfort to come...it is already there, since you have a job and security...and Angel Doc writes far better philisophy than me...she paints pictures with words....

Pearl: Thank you :)

Jagan: This is just random rambling!

mind curry: I knew I coul count on you to make a wholesome omlete :p Spoken like a true doctor about dosage etc. ...but true too, but it is incidents like these that shape us :)

Vaish: Thank you :)

Aashique: Pain and suffering and helplessness shape us...either way :)

quills said...

The philosophical silverine is as amazing as the funny one.:) Very lovely and thought provoking post.

Experiences makes us who we are. Depending on what we have gone through, it mentally toughens us. As you said, makes us appreciate the good things in life a whole lot more, and motivates us to share with less fortunate others. But it could also go the other way..we become more hardened and uncaring, kind of develop an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth mentality. No one was around when I needed a helping hand, so let me shut the world out as well. If you look at criminal minds, most of them have had an unhappy childhood, which resulted in them growing up to be anti-social. I think the formative years of our life are the most important and that is the period of your life when certain situations leave a lasting impact on your psyche and makes us what we are.

Whew! I am ready for some yummy omelette. :)

mathew said...

thanx silver for putting it up..

The points mentioned by you are very relevant..Just like you said we have the habit of brushing aside the "nonsense" many a time..but a little bit of analysing brings sense in it..

The onus lies on us how to face adversities..Rather expecting sympathy or enter into a "i have lost everything in life" psyche , its better to face it head on..find the postives and channel ourselves to a better frame of mind..difficult thou, thats all what we can do..After all we live only once!!make the most out of it!!

P.S..I had an omlette for dinner!! :-P

silverine said...

quills: You said it gal...and that is what I meant, experiences make us who and what we are. But I must say, even criminals if given a chance would prefer to live a normal life.

mathew: Thanks for inspiring me to post this :) Loved your post.

" P.S..I had an omlette for dinner!" et tu mathew??? :((
:p

pophabhi said...

No omletter for you. I am throwing HR'myya DVDs at you. You deserve it :D

Nice post, Silver...Phew that was a change! Its been thought provoking, and many a times life look like a complex maze. Maybe things might be different if we start realising the presence of God in others. Anbe Sivam!

Mathew seems to have triggered a philosophy round all over our blogworld!

Jiby said...

great post...reading this felt good...i struggle to express it in the right words...i used to have this feeling life is going all wrong for me now...maybe 10 years from now the lessons i have learnt well from this phase will help me cope better. and the best thing i have felt about every bitter experience, every hardship in the past is...it feels sweet, it makes me feel more richer than all the successes.

dont worry about eggs and tomatoes...i feel like cooking for u my best egg burji with tomatoes, onion, pepper and kaantharis(since u like them) for penning this superb post!

Jeseem said...

oyyeee, this one post that went way over my head. the post is like a scattered pearls of a necklace
and do u really appreciate happiness more when u have seen pain. doesn't pain make u pessismitic, so when you have better times, you are still trying to see what is wrong with it, instead of enjoying. look arnd at your pessismistic friends :-)
and u make mistakes and hurt people. same way people will make mistakes and may end up hurting u. its not a perfect world. once we accept it, we won't be blaming anyone, leave alone God/fate.
hey u can't have the omlette all by yourself, gimme some(hope ur mom and not u, hav been cooking the omlette :-P) .

Puchu said...

Yep, like you said, when you know what it is to be in such a situation, the next time you see a person in such a situation, you have a lot of empathy for him/her. However two exceptions to this that I know of:
1. Ragging in College. As juniors you never like the ragging, but when you become a senior you make sure you met out whatever you have got.
2. Kyon ki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi. Inspite of it, we hear of so many cases where the saas harasses the bahus, for whatever reasons.

:)

silverine said...

pophabhi: Thank you :) Mathew sure has made me post this one!!

Jiby: Thank you!!! Somehow a lot of things we thought were mere preaching seems to make sense now! And kaanthari mulagu is yummm in omlettes :))

Jessem: I have already mentioned in the post that I am focusing only on the learning exp that bad experiences give you.

Puchu: You are right but my reply to Jeseem holds good for your observations too :)