Life has neither a pause button nor is it a pass it on baton

Life has neither a pause button nor is it a pass it on baton.

A peep into self evaluation processes and problems of our activities.

I started to write about Self Evaluation processes and problems of our activities.

I realized suddenly that at least at some point in our life we need to make an honest evaluation of ourselves, our pursuits, our relationships, our dreams, our ambitions, our perceived purpose of life etc via our activities.

We cannot avoid or deny the fact that we do most of things for the sake of others, more as social animals trying to fulfill our obligations to our family members, friends, relatives etc. Or carry on activities which we are comfortably habituated to do either independently or in groups but which fit into the social milieu where we live and form part of our tradition[s], culture[s], social activity etc more as social obligations and from which we draw our own identity and social acceptance.

Besides these, of course, we must do many things inevitably to maintain the biological organism in which our present journey of life is encapsulated and experienced. We also do many things to protect it, pamper it, please it, pacify it etc as all animals do.

In addition, we also engage in many activities for our physical and intellectual survival and pleasure.

We also do many things to please the personally perceived and /or felt or popularly projected or humbly and/or passively accepted spiritual dimensions of life. Or probably the soul, the centre, operates on its own terms unperceived and unprompted by our conscious intellect. 

While doing all these we need to notice at least at intervals and see where we are? Are we proceeding in the right direction and at the correct speed?

Notice to scrutinize scientifically, to probe philosophically, and to experience independently life as it is evolving through us.

The problem is if we fail to do deal with certain things, at least once in a while, we may end up merely existing rather than living.

Most important thing to do with life is to live it with passion. We cannot leave it to merely survive as per anyone else’s version or words however great or good or grand that version may be. We cannot leave it to be passively impacted which is as bad or as good as actively ruining it.

If we fail to experience life as it is evolving through us, it will manifest the frictions in multiple ways either through us or from us or on us which we may even fail to perceive but evolution has been, is and will be constantly impacting life.

This does not mean that we need not profit from following or listening to or adopting any tested systems or methods or templates of living as reference. In fact the enlightened souls, wise philosophers, great scientist etc have left a vast treasury of wisdom and there are many around us who continue to inject such great wisdom which facilitate our understanding of life that much easier.

However  at the same time, experiencing life, in simple terms means, in addition to all the above referred facilitations, is all about allowing to ourselves the liberty to evaluate them with our own limited or unlimited [it depends on perception] capacities of understanding. The freedom to follow and /or not follow any reference and the freedom to experience life as it is, in our own way and in our own terms.

If we fail to do this we cannot even cry over the missed opportunities because the one thing with life is it keeps functioning every moment [life in principle is a moment to moment unfolding experience and not a periodic enterprise] unmindful of all our chronological demarcations or definitions.

The beauty of life is that it has neither a pause button nor is it a pass it on baton.

Also we must be clear about where the desired result can be totally achieved by our own efforts and wherein it requires others help, association, coordination, interaction etc

After all, all lives are inter related, inter dependent, inter active etc.

Life is functionally a dynamic energy; visually a multi faceted splendor; in reality a marvelous mystery which unfolds itself through each and every one of us at every moment and so on. Therefore life cannot be either generalized in any manner or simplified into any predefined categories.

Life, as dynamic energy, permeates, participates and is part of all life forms.

That’s why life cannot be classified into any form of binary stereotypes or four fold or five fold categories or can even be confined to any great single ism, religious scripture, life style, tradition, political system etc

Life continues to evolve every moment and constantly throws up challenges in varying degrees and intensities, in different dimensions and at unexpected intervals to every religious edict, tradition, scientific principles, philosophical theory, political or social or regional system etc

Life has always been and is a constant challenge to those who tried to and/or try to deal with it exclusively and purely based on pre set patterns of perceptions.

The further complication is the complexity of life that while it operates and evolves through us it also simultaneous operates and evolves through all other life forms.

So regarding the activities when they are initiated by us, emanate from us and performed by us there are not great problems as we can perform them to the best of our abilities, knowledge, willingness etc

But where they involve the co operation, collaboration or co participation of others we need to be clear as to what is their role and contribution? How best can we make use of them and also how best we can contribute to them as a sort of mutual growth strategy?

To what extent we can rely on them? To what extent we can take them for granted? Are their commitments and promises only in words or they can be expected to materialize into actual facts or reality? Or are we to live on mere verbal promises? Or are we to let others do things for us? Or do we have to think too much rather than getting into the required action at that moment? Can we trust our intuition and/or impulse more than our knowledge, thoughts, accumulated experience etc? Or do we need to use different tools like thinking, analysis, impulse, intuition, imagination, experience, knowledge etc in different situation and according to the context.

Are all our activities determined by the context or situation? If yes, then we cannot even frame or form any predetermined parameter of evaluation.

Or probably is it better to evaluate different aspects of life with different tools at different situations? Or better still

Evaluate the purpose of life by the amount of happiness we have given to others.

Evaluate the value of life by the extent we have been useful to others.

Evaluate the meaning of life by the love we give to others.

Evaluate the destiny of life by the amount of love we get from others.

Evaluate the quality of our life by our attitudes.

Evaluate the wisdom of our life by the experience we have gained and the lessons we have learnt and the knowledge we have acquired from our experiments and actions.

Evaluate the worthiness of our life by the amount of or extent of realizations we have had.

Evaluate the totality of life not by owning anything or even trying to own life itself but by living life.

But the best way to evaluate life is to live it, enjoy it and experience it while continuously entertaining the questioning process.

So, ultimately the very process of self –evaluation is problematic.