|
Hope and cynicism!
Andy to red
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"
Shawshank Redemption(1994)
Any one who has seen shawshank would agree with me that two things elevated the movie about a well planned prison break into something which just blows your mind apart.
The narrative voice of Morgan freeman which brings life to the memorable writings of stephen king.
More than that there is a third element to the story told, the incredible message of hope, Of hope sustained, nurtured and fructified against incredible travesties. A hope worn with quite dignity when faced with dehumanizing humiliation.
Red (narrating)
Andy Dufresne - who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.
Soon the movie is over we are back to reality, we see the ugly selfishness in ourselves and the world around us. We see the violence, the injustice and inhumanity. We remember the failures, the love lost. Hope is poisoned, cynicism creeps in.
We stop following the news, we stop talking to people we build a wall. we stop thinking. We cease to vote, we cease to try to make a difference. We tune out. We find false gods who preach hate. We start believing in their words that the cure to all evil is controlled and selective evil to all those we think are evil.
cynicism's arsenic prevades our system making us dyspeptic individuals.
Then one bright, beautiful july morning among all the cynicism, an andy or two walks into our lifes, giving us hope that, some birds are meant to be free, and the pacific is bluer than we thought and theres a little place with an old inn, near the beach, with sands untread and pure....
-thus spake the third eye
hath shakespeare ever writ!
The point in contention is the claim the bard makes in
sonnet cxvi (courtesy: google search and not my vast knowledge of the man's works). Forever seems such a far out claim.
"hands squeezed tight on the sands of the beach,
love you say! Nay then I have a lot to teach
fragile pact, in fragile times! held by hands, lest it breach!
leave them hands, fear they to! each shall part beyond reach."
Maybe oscar wilde hit the proverbial nail, the concept of love is forever, the players (not the thug playa) may not realize the true meaning.
The nightingale and the rose talks about the nightingale who makes the rose red for a love sick student. A beautiful story full of sweet irony. I shall not spoil it by summarizing it in a line. (the above can hardly be called a summary)
Maybe love is forever, the nightingales and the roses know it. Maybe we are too busy chasing material trappings, wealth power and ego to realise it ourselves. Do not know about love being forever but the memories are forever, it becomes part of you. Maybe love lives on forever as memories.
Then again maybe not. Maybe no man ever loved and the bard never writ and the nightingales...?
-thus spake the third eye
What is the price of success?
Convention bestows upon us numbers -" a metric"- to measure the degree's of success. While I have no grudge against such a measure, I feel that a desire to be 'not' judged, on a conventional metric shouldnt be pooh poohed either. I ofcourse have doubts in that maybe I use such high sounding arguments to justify my inability to live upto the metric in question. To put it plainly maybe, I am like the jackal which claimed the grape is sour only because it couldnt reach it.
Having said that there is a price to be paid to acheive a success in any metric.
There are many ways to attain success in any venture. I for one, know what ways not to take, even if I do not know what road to take. Knowing what not to do is but a beginning after all. Nethi principle- coming to the truth based on elimination.
I will not use people as pawns to climb the ladder of success. I shall not desire what I do not deserve. I shall seek no favours. If backbone, loyalty and trust are old fashioned so be it. A little bit of extra sweat and time is not going to matter in the journey of life. My metric always will be "am I comfortable in my own skin? If I should see myself in the mirror of conscience and look handsome, I have acheived success. Other metrics, I shall strive to acheive. If it happens, it happens! If it doesnt the journey will continue...as was once said.. no defeat is final untill one stops trying. I shall not....
-thus spake the third eye
