Life is not a concept. It’s not an invisible abstract that only exists as an extension of human consciousness. Rather, life itself is a living organism—an organic whole that operates on its own principles. It exists as an invisible whole that we can’t see but whose presence we can infer from the impact it has on us.

“Life is what you make of it”, yes true. “Life is a series of conscious choices being made at any given moment and the consequences of those choices”, again true. “Life meets you at the level of your audacity”, still true. And the list goes on. Yes, I’m holding the steering wheel of my life. Am I? Or is it life steering me towards the destinations of its desire and creating an illusion of free will and freedom of choice but presenting only a very limited number of options to choose from?

All in all, I found life bigger than myself. In retrospect, it doesn’t depend on me for how it turns out, rather, I’m the one who depends on it, while it quietly shapes the edges of my personhood throughout my years on earth.

It shapes me and yet it’s indifferent to me. It’s indifferent to us all. It doesn’t care who is who. It doesn’t care that you’ve missed your breakfast again because you woke up late, because you couldn’t sleep the night before, because the voices in your head were too loud, because you were having those forbidden violent thoughts that you shouldn’t be having, because you’re still stuck in what happened a decade ago, because you are drained to your core. It simply doesn’t care. The bus will still arrive on time, and you’ll be late.

Life doesn’t care about your losses and gains either. The wind blows the same whether you’ve won or lost. The river flows the same whether you triumph or are defeated. The birds sing the same whether you’re blooming with lively laughter, or feeling an endless grief weakening your bones. Nothing in the universe cares about you. Nothing in the universe owes you anything. It’s only your mind’s fantasies that put you at the center of the universe. It’s only a delusion. Nothing in the universe is about you. You were never the main character. You were never ‘the special’ creation. Your mind made up that narrative only to distract you from the horrors of an indifferent universe.

Take death for example. Nothing in the universe changed when you were born and nothing will change in the universe when you die. Your presence is insignificant in this vast universe. On the same lines, time does not stop when someone you love dies. Similarly, the sky doesn’t fall when people kill people only because their state authorities have conjured up some abstract enmities. The hell isn’t released when children die from hunger, buried under the rubble of the building that just collapsed. One moment you hear the news of the sexual assault and murder of an 18-month-old baby girl by a-17-years old male relative and the next moment you’re hurrying to get ready because you don’t want to be late to work.

Life doesn’t care how you feel. It doesn’t give you a grace period to adjust. Whatever happens in the world, life simply goes on.

…

We failed you Aizal, the dearest. I hope you’re at a better place, away from the monsters of this world.

It’s 2:07 am at the moment. While having dinner I saw a glimpse of tonight’s moon from the window. It looked fierce. The white glow was radiating through the clouds. It looked angry too. Angry and frustrated. It seemed as if he was burning inside. From what? I don’t know. Maybe, it was a failed attempt on his behalf to become more like the sun, to scare away all the darkness of the skies with his light, to somehow transform the night into an eternal day.

But the nights never go away, do they? They always come back, again and again. Not because they want to. Rather, they’re destined to. Why? I don’t know.

Darkness isn’t evil; rather, it’s misunderstood. It strips away the disguises we’ve worn all day and makes our soul stand naked in front of ourselves. It makes us look into the mirror, and that mirror is our own consciousness. We, humans, are too weak for that, to face our own nakedness. We tend to demonize it, in this case the darkness, whatever breaks down the illusionary comfort of the lies we keep telling ourselves to hide the truths that are heavier than the sky.

I feel sad for the moon, though. He has to be in constant rage to survive. If he stops, and accepts the fact that he’ll always be dependent on the sun for his light, the person he hates the most, that he’s always going to need the darkness of the night to make him shine, he’ll explode. Perhaps, that’s what’s keeping me alive. I have to see it to the end, even if the end means complete destruction.

I don’t know when and why, in this stream of consciousness, I interchanged ‘it’ with ‘him’ while referring to the moon.