Reflections on existence, inner strength and human spirit in times of isolation

There are instances when you are alone and you have to subsist all by yourself. This winter, now the third one in succession, I was marooned home all alone. In such settings, which I had the privilege to experience at different dot points over my life graph, you find yourself placed in a different and unfamiliar dimension far off from your loved ones. The cosmologists or the universe-specialists often point our attention towards the possibility of the existence of a multi-dimensional universe. All these theories you find get vindicated the moment you are left to yourself. The existence of the parallel worlds which you would ridicule in normal circumstances suddenly comes true. Your solitary room, which you’re confined to, transforms into a cave, and you start hearing the echoes and creaks, which normally do not occur in our three-dimensional existential propositions.
Putting it in Kafka’s style and however bizarre it may sound, you become conscious of the presence of microbes, insects and the creatures in the room and their conversation turns loud and is being heard and understood by you. The dark corners of the chamber act as black holes which do not let you escape. Your room is your capsule which is taking you on a voyage you have never been to. You are alone however you experience the Alice in Wonderland syndrome. The silence falls all around and yet it becomes so noisy to scare the hell out of you. Twilight deepens and fades into the dull silent night, the darkness surrounds you, the demons start to close in, and you realise you are out of time. Ha! You step out of the room and you witness the famous Farid Attari’s ‘Conference of Birds’ happening right in front of you, who have gathered to choose their sovereign. You happen to be one of the members out there.
This singular arrangement sets you out on a journey within your own being just as the wise sages and strong men of the past have been through. The man within and the world outside, together come calling on your demeanour. You are on a course of self-discovery and the latent potential embedded in you at the time of inception gradually starts unfolding during the challenging hours of survival.
Man is given this terrestrial world (part of the extra-terrestrial world as well, if we go by Elon Musk’s unbridled ambitions) by the Creator to excel and surpass on almost all fronts. For man to achieve whatever goal he sets his heart on, the code for the same too might have been stitched to his spirit or hard-wired into his soul when it was being blown into his body by his Maker. Indeed, only the Creator knows better. The human journey afforded to the man is thus guided by this code which works for his own well-being and prosperity and lets him take on the world and beyond. The guidance and the prowess for a man to emerge as a triumphant being come from within. The man has to realise that it is his basic instinct and unyielding spirit which activates the embedded code and thereby equips him to subdue any obstacle coming his way. Our spirit comes laden with the power which helps us find our way in case we lose it. The self-belief shall recognise and accept the presence of latent energies within us which we can invoke in the testing times.
One must ask oneself who we are when all the worldly labels and badges are stripped off of our shoulders. Is our real identification associated with the calling we follow, the posts we hold or the social status we are attributed to? Who are we without our ancestral leftovers, the tag we carry everywhere with us and flaunt it wherever we can? We carry our big family names, titles, and legacy and wear them on our sleeves. Don’t we? Who are we without these add-ons and attachments? Who do we see when we check our look in the mirror? The man who we feel goes along with our inner thoughts is the real us. Isn’t it? As Descartes puts it, “I think, therefore I am”. Our thoughts provide us with the recess where the real strength is to be derived from.
To me, the biggest event of the cosmos in recorded human history is the creation of man. The event was chronicled in the divine scriptures so that the progeny remains in the know of the design of his own coming into being. The flesh (clay) sculpture was carved, it was the initial hardware if I derive the analogy from the computer terminology. Then the software, the Spirit was installed in order to control this body. And finally came the applications part, the Names (the knowledge). The magnificence of this new being was so grand and splendid in the eyes of the Creator and so He loved His new making that He immediately ordained everyone around to bow down before this newly-created man. This could be in awe and recognition of what was bestowed upon him, probably. Notably, God did not order this newcomer to fall prostrate before Himself or His creation surrounding Him. Instead, it was something contrary to the expectations, something never-heard-of and never-happened-before sort of event.It was a deviation from the norm. In fact, even unacceptable for the stringent one, Satan, who took up the role, since this very day, of a villain playing against the man as someone whispering into him self-doubt in order to weaken him and make him astray by luring him to fall back and sin.
Thus, the fight began the day the idea of man was conceptualized. The indomitable spirit helps the man face the worst, achieve his ambitions and survive in the toughest possible circumstances. The fighting spirit remains with him throughout his journey till the time death comes and takes him away from the scene. Till then, the man has to stick firm to the belief that he has to struggle and fight for his survival and excellence in the best possible way against all adversaries lurking in the unknown, waiting on him. The code to fight and face the challenges lies within, however.
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Suhail H Deen