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No the intent is not to degrade the human spirit – just a stark reminder of the fragility of the silken thread!

Yes, human life hangs by a fragile silken thread, which, depending on the indices of vanity and arrogance can be less or more frangible. I woke up this morning in a daze – no sleep due to the errant electric supply and the thoughts of several friends and other known persons having ‘turned to dust’. One wants to believe that this is all a bad dream, but the heart sinks when you realize – no, it is reality. In the time today – life, death, loss – have occupied my thoughts and never has the fragility of the human life been so terrifying.

It is natural to feel scared and sad, but what we forget is that no one ‘survives life’! People die, and especially when they die what we deem as ‘too soon’ nothing makes sense, and this too soon is a hard pill to swallow. Even when the elderly or sick die, it seems wrong, unfair, and leaves us confused. We as a species are obsessed with youth, beauty, winning, making progress, and ‘getting the better of’. These are not bad – our obsession for them is. What makes the silken thread even more fragile is our proclivity to forget what and who matters the most.

In the moments of loss – whether our own or that of others/the public – we are intensely reminded that we need to stop, cogitate, and take stock of our priorities. We need to question our capacity and need for POWER. We as humans believe that this power is unstoppable and there is no doubt of its supremacy. But the illusion of this hegemony is broken and we are now forced to accept that the fragility of the silken thread is the truth. The fact is when we find no words or there isn’t enough wisdom to explain, most explain it as ‘God’s will’ or that ‘He is Who Holds the Other End of the Thread’. Whatever we may say – the truth is we humans are constantly in the pursuit of ‘security’.

What we are facing now, or in the past and in the future – will it be what we want? Will the arrogant, preponderant, and pretender humans admit that they are not in control? We want to ‘own’ all the knowledge, all there is to understand – in fact have control over every nanosecond of life. We want threads of freedom and security – but in an instant we lost dominion and ‘control’.