On the Dawn of a New Day

I find myself writing this early in the morning of another Monday. The first day of the week. The second week of the new year. All this appears to promise a fresh start to life. But there's no guarantee that life will deliver us the peace and happiness we seek. Nor can we expect that other people can ever solve our problems and lead us to liberation. Nor can we rely simply on faith or belief in our view of how the world works or how it ought to work.

We seek to be individuals and to assert our identity. Yet, we simultaneously wish to form part of the wider humanity. As Donne put it, no man is an island. We are caught in the conflict of human existence. In order to love others, we need to love ourselves. But to truly love ourselves, we need to love others. There doesn't appear to be any resolution to our human condition. However, aren't we in a interdependent relation with the world and others?

Are we not always open to the world that surrounds us in the process of defining who we are? Aren't we mirrors of each other, reflections of each other? And yet, relatively independent of each other? Isn't our very self ever changing and constant

at the same time? Does our temporary existence make us more, or less, real beings?

And, does it really matter? For, in the context of lived experience, engaging into idle speculation carries the risk of distracting us from the life's we should be living in the now. It can rob us of the opportunity to get to know each other better and, as a result, get to know who we are better. Such speculation may lead us even to reduce living beings to mere abstract objects without autonomous being or identity. Speculation may simply fuel our narcissism and confound the distinctions between genuine effort and artificial ones only seeking to glorify the self.

A self, which in truth, remains relative and is never absolute in its reality.

I pause and stop. For I'm thirsty. Neither these words or sentences can ever truly quench my need for nourishment. This is our human condition. Failing to recognise our frailty is an insult to our integrity.

Why do we have to die?

If you consider the many ways we express who we are and the different rolls we take on during our lives, it's not difficult to appreciate that how we define ourselves is dependent on context, our background and mood at the time we engage with the world and our inner selves. In simple terms, we have a need to express ourselves in a variety of ways, such as through artistic creations, scientific endeavours or by religious or spiritual practice.

While we may have a preference for one area over another, the fact remains that our attempts to express who we are and thus define who we are stems from a need to defy death in our own way. Whether this entails leaving a masterpiece, make a new discovery or even have children, we want to be remembered and gain a kind of immortality . Ironically, even those wanting to end their life by committing suicide are trying to tell the world something that we aren't noticing or are so lost in our private worlds that we see only as far as our inner circle.

These are important questions, and require some thought and more investigation. And I feel that I've neglected this aspect of myself which also defines who I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to struggle for the rights of disabled people like myself. But, I'm at a stage of my life where I need to take a good look at my priorities in life and think more about whwant to achieve in life.

The experiences that impairment and the manner society has reacted to me (often disabling me) and all the adaptations I learned to make to address any limitation of the body, have influenced me for life. And even if many may assume my physical and sensory impairment were sources of great sadness and disappointment, my experience tells me a different story. Indeed, on the contrary, my apparent limitation has forced me to swallow my pride on many occasions. It also placed me in situations where I had to find alternative solutions to tasks that average people take for granted. More importantly, my differences have helped me refrain from judging others by their appearances because I knew how strangers have judged me.

But it's a trap when you think you can fight these forces by living a life that affirms your right to humanity. The risk is that by doing so, you become enslaved to a cage of your own making. In other words, you become stuck in a one dimensional reality. As a consequence, you avoid or neglect the other aspects of your life that you cherished since childhood. In my case, my longing for answers, my love for writing and my hunger for meaning. Ultimately, our quest for a degree of immortality and our thirst for purpose in life are our way of dealing with a Hunan concern.

Why do we have to die?