World Affairs

BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS

by Emmanuel Ude
05/24/16
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Title : BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS…

Author: Bassey Emmanuel ude

What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life.

            What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men--in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

            Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralyzing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place. To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of creation generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view.

            And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavours and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth,

            Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavour--property, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me contemptible. (The world as I see it…Albert Einstein)

            The truth that every man must one day die cannot be overemphasized, as everybody is daily believing that “I will die someday”. We are born innocently into a world we know nothing about, we are forced into an existence we didn’t bargain for and to live amongst people we didn’t ask to be with. Life is a mystery, who then understands it? As we grow we tend to adapt to the environment we find ourselves in, how we react to this environmental circumstances seems to be an individual choice. Every society has the good and the acclaimed bad people, (nobody wants to be known as a bad person) and we grow up to meet what is already in existence and from childhood, we always want to create or rather add to all we see in our everyday society. As we nurture our ambitions, dreams, wishes, desires, we come to the knowledge of the unpleasant, I call him the LIMITER. Death limits mankind, death regulates human existence, death is a control strategy, death is the uninvited but unconsciously welcomed visitor, and death is our everyday companion. Everybody wants to do something great or become somebody widely known before they die, in light of this, we should keep in mind that our life is control by a supernatural being and can be taken away from us anytime. In a world surrounded by crime, corruption, wars and other social vices, we hear and know that the world would soon end. If that is true, what do you want to become or what do you want to do? BEFORE THE WORLD ENDS…