“Self-deprecation is never a place to visit unless waters of self-conceit abate…” Foye, 2011
Trudging across plains of dithering uncertainties, flagellating introspection and a never rescinding reality was never an unusual occupation for my mind. I often arrived at a place called self pity on such hikes. It’s never an interesting place to be though.
To paraphrase a famous remark by Immanuel Kant, reflection without life is empty, and life without reflection is blind.
It has been a soothing six months practically and partially devoid of inundations from a not too distant past. It has been six months of refrain; absolute refrain from alcoholic intake. It has been six months since this blogger decided against drinking in all ramifications for those who know him fairly well. He’s had a discomfiting past with drinking and for a long time it was the only vice of yours truly.
The moral rectitude of such past shall be left to the reader to decide and deliberate on for what morality itself is can sometimes be subjective. The blogger is no perfectly righteous being and anyone who authoritatively asserts himself as one may become another Meletus of Plato’s Apology. He, however, holds himself to some moral standards as much as he can. Yet, he can’t still regard himself as totally bereft of imperfection. He still battles with some other superficial indulgence.
As Albert Einstein wrote, “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from self”. Liberation from self, however, is predicated on the absolute realization and departure from a self fraught with existing inadequacies. It starts only with self criticism.
The mystery and misery of self-criticism, however, is never ephemeral and ever daunting. It is ever appalling to find one’s self on the verge of a plummet into such nuanced oblivion. The outcome sometimes diffident.
It was at this point I found myself some six months back vacillating between need and necessity, between cease and accede and between reason and reality. I was at the crossroads between self appraisal, self pity, self conceit and self restraint. A decision was needed and needed quickly.
It wasn’t seamless to see the decision through. A best friend wouldn’t believe. However, it later went on to become the best decision taken by yours truly so far in the contraption of time called year. It was seconded only by a decision torn between a “right” choice and a “best” choice in the dawn of the year. The “right” choice was indeed right for it harmonizes my present state of mind and being. I must say I feel proud of myself.
In all of these, the necessity for an occasional review of life remains auspicious however rueful it may seem or be. I’m not given to the popularly accepted notion of destiny promised on a premise of false hope. Deluded, a close female friend would call me.
However, I do believe in a life guarded primarily by choices; choices in everyday life. I believe in a life of critical self appraisal. I believe in effort and result. I believe in hard work, purpose and drive. I believe in pragmatic life and living.
Foye.