What Do You Believe In

A note about Imaan or Faith or Allegiance.

There ought to be at least one thing – an idea, a love, a craft, a nation, a god – just about anything that one should have as a port at which to anchor one’s soul.

A ‘BAE’ in the language of my millennial children – a concept that is prioritised  ‘Before All Else’.

In the pursuit of freedom of thought and act, I seem to have none of these anchors that bind as much as they stabilise.

So now what? What do I say when I am asked ‘what do you believe in

As I had no answer to this simple question l was led some sunset thinking on beach.

The answer did not come from thinking about what I believe in – because to my knowledge there is nothing that I am not willing to change my mind on given a convincing reason. The answer came from an examination of how I had spent my life.

And in that I found that the only thing that I have taken seriously is work. That work has taken many forms in the course of my life. It could have been the corporate jobs or my little business ventures. Or it could be the task of raising of children or the cooking of a meal or the training of the household help. My self-chosen work was, to me, the one thing that I gave my total allegiance to.

The success or failures of the work produced is besides the point. The point is that the answer to the question ‘what do I believe in’ is that the only imaan I have had consistently over this lifetime is towards the work I’ve done.

And, I suspect that despite the outward declarations of allegiances that are made under societal pressures to belong to a tribe, there are many like me in their innermost spaces.

For how else could anyone produce the masterpieces we see had they not held their work as the single-most important thing in their life? How could the output have been so  extraordinary and spine-tingling without some extraordinary input?

My guess is that most give the best of their spirit to their chosen work. And when work is done ‘svantuh sukhaye’ (sanskrit for- for their own pleasure and satisfaction) the amount of soul poured in is extraordinary.

And in the world of artists – the output of such work regales the rest of the world for decades and centuries!

Some days just feeding off the devotion of these artists embedded in these masterpieces is sufficient inspiration to take one more step and to keep moving ahead.

For, if you don’t move you stagnate … and then one fine day we’ll be left wondering where life went.

jm

June 2020

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