By Vedajit Yumnam
Today, 13 days old is 2013 which has begun its sojourn with the usual rites and rituals. Wishes, blessings, festivals, and prayers of one sort or another and so on have been showered on earth. Unfortunate incidents notwithstanding, 2013 will stay fresh and new for the whole month of January with varying degrees with the clock ticking. Whether by tradition, all these things take place or 2013 is celebrated with a commitment to bring a better society will show in the course of time . In other words, what is intended will appear through the mode of implementation, the development leading to the end or result by degrees.
What does 2013 mean to life? Life will be the most important issue of all times as long as life exists or lives on earth or until it becomes extinct. There are various subjects coming up for the uplifting and refining life, for some reasons or purposes. Colleges and universities offer opportunities to pursue new myriad courses, degrees and programmes ranging from fashion and interior design to digital and media arts. Look at the curriculum of Wheaton college (Massachusetts) offering 600 courses in subjects including physics, philosophy, computer science, English, Economics, political science, history, and theatre.
Physicists, biologists, anthropologists, philosophers and people from various walks of life from different angles collect a huge collection of information to have a clearer idea of life and its basic patterns. Darwin’s theory is there. Have they yet
The questions on what life is and how it works have evaded and mystified people from all walks of life since the earliest times. Among those who are engaged in the study of life and its origins and the latest development in synthetic biology are Nobel laureates Sidney Altman and Leland Hartwell, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, and The Science Network’s Roger Bingham. The ASU Origins Project is said to sponsor “The Great Debate: What is Life?” by going into partnership with the Science Network, J. Epstein Foundation and the NASA Astrobiology Institute.
We all feel and see life growing, maturing and dying. Some say, “A life has a trajectory and life’s trajectory seems disjointed or to lack continuity, that is disconnected in its unfolding”.
A definition of life which is universally accepted does not exist. Someone writes, “The most critical problem in the world of human beings is that most of the human beings do not exert themselves to know why they are living and what they should have to live for in their lives. Some people say that life is an endless task while some say that life is the mystery which only god knows.”
Living things are different from non-living things. But some see life in non-living things. What is Literarure all about? It concerns life –life. William J long writes,” Now man is ever a dual creature; he is not only a doer of deeds, but a dreamer of dreams…to know him, the man of any age, we must search deeper than his history….we must read his literature, where we find his ideals recorded.
Literature evokes in reader varying emotions of joy, hope, catharsis, and so forth along with revelation, classic insights into truth and beauty and so on which are part and parcel of life.
Somewhere someone said about having “breakfast in Tokyo, lunch in Singapore, dinner in an Indian metro politan city and taking another flight to spend the same day in the same style in other global cities and flying back to Japan.” One can read daily on the internet, online newspapers published all over the globe like the Washington post, New York Times and so forth before breakfast, bringing to our attention news about multitudinous things and people from all walks of life.
Life is not the wanderings from birth to death. Literary works immortalize Shakespeare. It keeps life going. Writers depict human breathing bodies without life (– what is life? – ) and various characters and manifold shades of human beings.
Philosophical writings can illuminate the idea of life and the way it works. Let us channel potentials into the best creative activities for the sake of humanity and for uplifting its spirits and live life to the fullest.