At first, there is an eerie calm.
The proverbial lull before the storm.
A deafening silence that engulfs the tranquil soul,
and an intoxicated life that drowns the mind into unfathomable depths of a subconscious whole.
And then there is a gusty storm - one of the most extraordinary kind.
It comes unheralded, and whistles past the flummoxed mind.
Does incalculable damage, and leaves without an iota of trace.
And the fact that you survive it, offers no saving grace.
What remains after the rampage is a numbed mind, incapacitated in thought,
and an emaciated soul, whose purpose for existence is frantically sought.
O! What on mother Earth is this all-devastating storm called?
A Streetcar Named Desire! Lo and behold!!
Desire, an ordinary word that has come to acquire an extraordinary meaning. Is it fundamentally wrong to have desires? Is a soul with desires, fallen? Is desire the sole cause of misery? Is salvation, the lack of desires? Why do we always associate desire with such high-sounding philosophical questions, the answers to which are the hardest to come by?
A mind, in perfect harmony with its surroundings, is agitated beyond reprieve by the mere intrusion of a desirous thought. What appeases the mind thence is nothing less than performing the surreptitious act of giving into the temptation of desire. And even after the soul has succumbed to the temptation, the crazed mind knows no respite because the fear of God looms large as a spectre in its dark, long, and deserted alleys.
Who then is the true survivor - the one who abandons all fear or the one who abandons all desire?
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2 comments:
The discussion is incomplete without mention of the fact that the very ability to avoid a temptation at hand is quite rewarding at times. The true survivor is neither the person who successfully resists all desire nor the person who abondons the fear that invariably follows submission to desire, but the person who learns to intelligently decide his responses to desire and then enjoy the feeling he obtains from this control.
That said, the poem is beautiful. Hope to see some more like this one on this blog.
Cheers!
If I had the power to resist temptations, I would be God. That aside, resisting a particular temptation doesn't say anything about behaviour towards others. The point being that one resisted temptation may manifest itself into many other such temptations. Thus, unless you can conclusively prove that after learning the art of resisting temptations, you can resist all possible temptations, you will not have really done justice to the effort involved in resisting one.
Having said that, I still am not clear on your response towards the question I raised about whether having temptations/desires is inherently bad. If it is, then resisting them is an external good worth achieving. If not, then the mere fact that we are using the word "resist" for temptations and desires is inappropriate to say the least.
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