The above picture shows a flower that is quite commonly found in gardens in a part of the country I call home. They grow in abundance, do not require much care and bloom throughout the year. They come in many shades: red, white, pink, violet. They add a lot of color and brightness to the garden. Yet they are taken for granted and not really noticed or taken care of by the gardener. Instead, Orchids and Dahlias are given priority and great care, although they rarely bloom despite all thats done. Still, the gardener continues to care for the orchids and dahlias and not the pink ever-blooming flower which is bright despite being ignored.
It is human nature perhaps to take everything for granted, whether it be people, animals, things, emotions, trees, plants, insects, buildings.. And also it is one of the biggest mistakes we commit in life, something most of us hate probably ( I surely do), but yet, guilty of ourselves. It is something that can spoil relationships, tear apart families, ruin careers, split friendships, escalate wars and many such grave things.
We all know how humans take Mother Earth and the environment we live in for granted, plundering all that we have for "free"- air, water, land, seas, forests. We have seen many lovers reach a dead end because they took each-other for granted and felt suffocated in the end knowing there is no spark in their lives anymore. We lose all the freshness of our lives by taking all that’s around us for so granted.
Will it always take a loss for us to know what is dear?
Will we always need a lie to inspire us to find the truth?
Will only injustice ensure that in the end justice prevails?
Will it always be death that makes us realize what meant life to us?
Will it always be a disease that forces us to take care of our health?
Will it always be war that lets us know how precious peace was?
Will we always need a failure to make us fight for victory?
Will we always need a heart-break to know how much we were loved?
24 comments:
I was waiting for when u will post ur next ( with bated breadthe ofcourse) but I wasnt prepared for something so beautiful ..what u have written is a fact that is at the essence of each of our lives... If only we could learn to walk without falling down but unless we fall we dont realise that that's not the way to walk !!
As someone once told me shruti unless there is darkness we wouldnt understand light.
What a gem of a post!!!
Taking someone for granted is a sure shot way to kill a friendship or love. But we all learn the hard way isn't it? It is the tendency to complacency that makes us this way I guess. The lucky ones get a second chance after a jolt, some never get a second chance and rue the day they took things easy. But then once bitten twice shy I guess and smart people never makes the same mistakes twice.
We humans seem to be programmed to learn from mistakes :))
Will we always need a heart-break to know how much we were loved?
That was so deep but an essential truth and from what I see around it seems to be inevitable.
Funny...but I wrote a post on similar lines on Think Pad just yesterday!!!
Great to see you back to blogging dear doc :)
Don't we always do this? How much we see and learn from our own mistakes or even others, me still do it? Why? *sigh*
@ shruti - :) hope you didnt get hypoxic ;)
i surely believe that we cannot learn to walk without falling..and i think we should all be encouraged to learn and do things ourselves, not afraid to "fail" because there is no real failure as long as we learn.
but the question was that do we always need that wake-up call. unless something hits us badly we always take things and people for accepted.
shruti, now that you understood light, dont go back and sit in the darkness again.
@ silverine - yes, sadly we all learn the hardway and relearn in harder ways. thats human nature!
as long as we learn from our mistakes, we are great and doing good. but we dont usually, and we always need a jolt constantly.
but yeah, the worst thing we do is take the love we get for granted.
i read your post and it was nice..almost imagined you in black&white :) like someone said, relationships are like special plants. you need to give your constant attention, water them and take good care. only then will they bloom.
great to read your comments again as well :)
@ geetha - yes..man! we never learn! :)
yes i got what u were saying in the post.. thts wht i meant ..not falling down as in not taking people for granted ..its a thin line that divides the way we treat people ..walking that line is tough . But i feel we do learn in some ways . Subconsciously our past mistakes do effect our current behaviour ..
I think I have understood light ( to some extent and will not go back to darkness now ). yes to keep on repeating this out of compulsive behaviour ..knowing it is somewhere wrong to take things for granted .. that is worng and cannot be pardoned. But den there are others who do not realise that the short coming lies in the way they behave and see things, in their perspective and keep seeking reaasurances for their behaviour or blaming others and hence keep repeating the mistake .
like someone said, relationships are like special plants. you need to give your constant attention, water them and take good care. only then will they bloom.
Love bloomed and that's how the relationship started isn't it? :) So the natural thing would be to take care of the bloomed love so that it doesn't wither.
Take Mother Earth for granted and our future generations won't have existential dilemmas like this anymore lol
This is my 7th attempt to post this comment :(
@ shruti - now that was deep..i think i am left in the darkness now :)
@ silverine - 7 is my lucky number!
blogger has been acting up of late..too many users i guess.
love bloomed.. wow..i like the sound of it. i can see a bud blossom out so beautifully.
you are so right about mother earth and our future generations!
Great post again ... we humans are lazy by make up and like to take everything for granted. :-)
And that flower .. you reminded me of my childhood .. we had them aplenty and used to peel off the petals and bring out the needles from the stem and make a clock out of them. :-)
I also had a touch-me-not plant very close by which we touched freq. Ever since I grew up I have been looking hard for one. Whenever I see one looking like that, I try to touch it and see if the leaves curl up. :-)
maybe ur darkness is different from mine :-).. or we are looking at the same thing from 2 different angles !
I hope I am not intruding into the serious discussion that is going one.
Mind curry, brother, your wisdom leaves me speechless. Your words leave me in awe.
What you have said is absolutely right and I couldn’t agree more with you. The last stanza is pure gem.
Will it always take a loss for us to know what is dear? Not necessarily, but it definitely amplifies the loss.
:)
Pls do join in on the very creative suggestions being aired at Brijesh's blog :|
chetayi, ur posts are growing on all of us here!!! what do i say...u have powerfully brought out sad truths in our life through all those poetic lines.
at another time in life i wudnt have given much thought for wht u wrote(yeah, taken for granted!) but now i relate with u wrote coz i am at a stage in life, where i have wiped my slate clean, have a few months ahead to take life easy and all i am doing is sitting quite idly and contemplating the best way to take life forward.
the civil service effort i think failed this time...i got real close, but then whats the point in that...have just gotten over the disappointment. everyones telling me to put in another year...cant decide...am wondering if there are better careers out there.
beautiful..!! very true..
im so impressed with ur writing..
Great post MC.....
As many observed here, one doesn't appreciate the value of things he takes for granted..... unless you find you don't have it anymore. Worst of this is taking *people* for granted.....
This is a anti-fairytale story I heard in the classic movie "Cinema Paradiso";
There was a palace guard soldier who was hopelessly in love with the beautiful princess. He would try to catch a glimpse of her whenever she opened her window on the tower, walk by the gardens etc etc. One day he musters enough courage, goes to her and confesses his love. The princess was more amused than angry, perhaps she even liked him, and for some reason asked him to wait "a hundred days and nights outside her door to prove his love". The soldier agrees and he waits like that tin-soldier, outside the keep where the princess could see him. For many nights, he braved the winds, the rains, the chills, hunger and thirst.... the princess opened the window every dawn to check he was still there. [i]{I dunno if she was worried at heart on the ordeal the soldier was facing, but she still insisted on seeing him serve the entire "sentence"}[/i]
Just *before* the 100th night came to an end, she opens the window and is shocked to see the soldier leave the post, without even as much a glance over his shoulder....
I chewed on it for quite a while till I got what the the story conveyed.....
Oh hoy!
So, I see ,the Pink Panther is back in action with yet another killer post :)
while we are on the subject of killing,ahem,here's something to chew on....
What did Pink Panther sing when he stepped on a dead ant?
guess
guess again ...
not a clue...
try again...
naaaa?...??//?
ok....here goes....
Dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead AAAAAAAAnt...dead dead dead AnT!!!:))
Really beautiful MC your random thoughts. :)
Anyway, you are so right. It is so easy to take for granted things that are dear to us and yet we seldom realize it.
@ archana - thanks dear. yeah that flower is a cute little thing huh..ohh..the touch-me-nots :) so cute..even i remember doing the same..so fascinating it used to be!
@ shruti - :) i was just kidding you know..
@ alexis - thanks so much bro! when you say such things, its an honor!
@ silverine - i did :)
@ jiby - thanks a ton jiby.
now that you have your slate clean, just begin a whole-hearted sincere effort again. i will vouch one thing - no effort in life goes waste!
i dont think the CSE effort has gone waste or anything. and if i saw you now i woulda given you a tap on your head!! what disappointment and all!!! nonsense..its what you aimed for! so just do it..one more attempt and i am sure you will get through! trust me! i dont want to hear you waiver or think twice about it! please!
@ hope and love - seriously doc! :) we are still almost lost in the mountains with your writing!
@ anand - hail anand! now cinema paradiso i gotta watch! and i would say thats a confusing story..surely 100 people would decipher it in 10 different ways.
maybe the guard shoulda finished the 100 days..spoken to her..and then left.
@ maya - :) so cute! and the answer..wow..i would have never ever guessed it!
@ quills - thanks a ton :) welcome back.
hi MC,
good post.
I was talking about the same thing with my mom today evening. :)
We keep learning from our mistakes.
and i think, we take those dearest to us for granted, though it is not always right.
@Maya: So What did Pink Panther sing when he saw a live ant?
guess
guess again ...
not a clue...
try again...
naaaa?...??//?
ok....here goes....
He stepped on it, killed it and said.....
Dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead ant,dead AAAAAAAAnt...dead dead dead AnT!!!:))
@Maya: That was soooo cute :)
@Alexis : ROFL..very naughty!!!!
how do you write so beautifully!
left spellbound...
nice post. something to think about- You knew the about dahlias and orchids but didnt know what the pink flower was called..thats the reality of life. people value that which is hard to get and disregard that which is common
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