Well for some weird reason it really struck me & I decided to check this out by doing something commonly known as Googling. Well, what our dear Mr. Magmorium said was actually true, the ending of the lead character in Shakespeare biggest works of arts King Lear, is by two simple words – he dies.
Quote:
A messenger enters and reveals that Edmund has also died. Lear asks Edgar to loosen Cordelia’s button; then, just as Lear thinks that he sees her beginning to breathe again, he dies.
And here is where my peanut sized brain starts working. We look around in our world, we see a constant cycle. A cycle of birth, life & finally death. Though death or loss of life can happen in a blink of an eye, the whole cycle before it is long & the most celebrated one. Unlike death ie; the end of life, the beginning of life doesn't happen in a blink of a second. To the egg to the final newborn baby the process of life goes on. I don't think there would be an exact instant when we can pin point & mark as the beginning of life. Is it the embryo in the mother's womb or did the egg itself had life. Is it only after the baby comes out into the world that we call that the life has begun. Well for the majority of us that is when life begins, because of which we have the horoscopes & the other stuff which I don't understand, begin from the date of “birth”.
Well if explaining the origin/beginning of life seemed difficult then the process of life would be much more complex. I believe the life cycle of man is quite different from almost all other living species. His actions in most occasions are controlled by logic while on other instances by emotion. It becomes almost impossible to judge how a human being can react to the exact same situation at different point of time. He lives his life first trying to learn, then trying to use this knowledge to attain & finally to give whatever he attained through his life time, to the next generation.
As a child, man learns the skills to face the world & attain from it. These skills can range from something specific like math, physics or maybe a special skill like riding a horse or hunting. Mostly throughout his childhood he learns & fine tunes his knowledge to go out & face the world. He takes it for granted that a long life lies ahead of him for which he has to be equipped & all his efforts are channelized to attain his goal, which might be few years or even decades later.
In his second phase of life, man uses the skill he had acquired to acquire wealth, fame & whatever his fancy may be. Now this is the most ambitious of phases, here he builds bridges & roads. He constructs houses & erects monuments, hospitals. He builds schools so that the next generation can also equip themselves with the skills. He knows for sure what his goals are & has already planned ahead for decades. He acquires wealth so that he can survive during his old age & his kids can survive for another generation. He is concerned about the education & welfare of the kids he has not yet had. He comes up with ingenious solutions which can cure grave illness, can eradicate poverty , which can bring in prosperity even decades later. He plants saplings which would become big trees within the next 5 to 6 decades. For him its a rats race out there, where he struggles today, so that he or his further generations can have a better tomorrow.
Now the third phase, well here is where you actually get the point of the cycle. Unlike the previous two phases, in this phase its all about utilizing or giving. By the time man reaches this stage of his life, he realizes he has attained a lot in his life, there isn't enough time to utilize all what he has achieved. Well, this phase of life unlike the first two, have no exact time of occurrence in man's life. Few men live their complete life in the second phase while few are too weak & reach the third phase quiet quickly. This phase is different for one more reason, all of a sudden there is a quick change in perspective. In the first two phases, man had taken his life for granted & was preparing & planning for years ahead. But in this phase the assurance of life ahead starts decreasing. He realizes he had made more than he could possibly utilize & the time ahead might be too less to see the fruits of his efforts in his second phase. The plans of prosperity which he had made, the saplings which he had planted are yet to take form. This is the phase of giving. Man tries to share his wisdom at this age, he has become wise over the years & now his experience of life seems more valuable than the lessons he learnt as a child. He shares his wealth he acquired & the knowledge he gained to the next generation.
But unfortunately the next generation is too busy building & continuing the path of their fathers & forefathers had made. They do not fear the future because for them life is an assurance. The cycle of life continues... As time closes in, we realize that all we had achieved & acquired is just something which will pass on to the next, but there is something which can never be passed on. It is the experiences in life.. the love, the sorrow, the hardships, the hate, all these however much we try to express with words, can never be completely understood other than by experience. We realize all the sacrifices we made in the first & second phase of life to achieve something which now, is of no use to use. The love we ignored, the beauty we failed to recognize, the times we failed to thank, all these start coming back to us. But now its too late.. They say, when we near death, it feels as if our whole life passes in front of our eyes like a slide show on power point, if only we could pause at a point & make up for all what we missed...
Then who has a beautiful death if, every man passes through all these life cycles & regrets at the end. Well, I think few of them out there do. The few who love life & live everyday in their life as if its the last. The few who find time to look up at the blue sky, the chirping birds, the rays of the sun through the dew drops on the leaves. The few who find love in their life & enjoy each and every moment of their life. For them the second phase of life is not only for gaining wealth but for loving what they do & most importantly...living.
After all, like Maximus said “If you find yourself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on your face, do not be troubled. For you are in Elysium, and you're already dead!”
