HERACLITUS, the ancient Greek philosopher said that "man's character is his fate". I beg to differ, just a little.I've lived long enough to know that there is more of what I have done than yet-to-do and that, simply put, means, being for me is no longer mere conjecture; something to be fashioned along the lines of profound observations by great others. Rather, I have come to a point in my life where its time I make my own observations and share them with other mortals. For, some recent happenings in my life have brought this awareness into clear relief. One of them, the arrival of Arrya.
Arrya arrived and living took a much needed kick-in-the-butt and complacency bid me good-bye.
Arrya is this beautiful little person who came into my life in spite of me. He is indeed my fate, my destiny. Another one of those things that, with control and some will power, the pleasure would never have been mine to have. Before him one word described me: selfish. But, trust me, I deserve a little selfishness, if not a lot. Let's not go into that. I want to share Arrya with you.
You know how babies tend to cry a lot. Well, Arrya doesn't. He used to cry very little and even then not at intolerable decibels. That has changed with the months though. He is crying much more and at decibels you will not miss. I guess he has discovered Samsara and thank God. I know that he has acquired some important survival skills. In turn, I have discovered a veritable reservoir of patience and some sense of priority.
Now, let me tell you something about aging. You can take all the anti-aging supplements and skin care and every armoury available in the stable, but trust me none of this works without enough sleep. [But let me lay a clear caveat here: I think a regular dose of adrenalin rush is also very beneficial.] When a baby comes into your life, the first thing that goes totally awry is your sleep pattern. When that happens to older people, fundamental structural strains occur. Where once you woke up with a body reasonable resurrected to do another day's battles, you now are jiggling all over. And that, my friend, is scary.
Strangely, however, that has not stopped me from taking the night shift with Arrya. I need to know that we are bonding. I want him to learn quickly who I am and how we fit together in Samsara. All this new unqualified selflessness is new to me. I sense that a new me is being born, one who finds solace beyond my own skin in an unexacting way.
Never having been a saint, every act of kindness -- most definitely not rare -- I extended to others has always felt as if it had been ripped from me. The difference between each one of them is mere degree. What is obvious every time is the sense of accompanying triumph, what to me is a demonstration of moral agency. That I am a moral agent is comforting because I then know that I'm no sociopath.
Things have changed though. With Arrya I am aware of living and loving unconditionally as never before. Not that I have never loved unconditionally. My two boys are exactly that to me. But with them I was a young mother burning with ambition and aflame with desires, myriads of them. To salve my conscience each time I took a step farther than hearth and home I told myself that it was all for them. It was an honest mistake made out of youthful ignorance, a blind allegiance to socialisation. Which automatically took me to that period before Arrya when I felt entitled to enjoy my many freedoms now that the boys are grown.
With Arrya that all changed. Those freedoms, in retrospect, were empty and was leading to nowhere. They were nothing but self indulgence, a crass hedonism as bad as any addiction. I was drowning in meaningless seeming pleasures, seeking an elusive ecstasy in an orgy of living, doing, working. With Arrya, fate has given me character. Will this new found character shape my fate, no matter how late in life, and prove Heraclitus right?
No matter. What I am now left with is this wondering whether what I have been taught about life is a dangerous fallacy intended to leave my existence patterned with ugly holes, missing what might be the happiness much sought after throughout history, from Epicurus to the Stoics. And, that society's concepts on what consitutes a good life is but a sham, a conspiracy so that others might live undisturbed in their stupor. In short, I now feel cheated and short changed.
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