All of us, well, at least most of us, have seen the Saw movie series. The central character Jigsaw (Jonathan Kramer) terrified us throughout the sequels, living or dead. "Game Over!!" was the chilling exit line in every movie, that sealed the fate of the many victims of the games Jigsaw played. All games with one theme : 'Appreciate your life, or die!' ; with one question as the rule of playing : 'How much blood can you spill, to stay alive?' Exciting? Yep. Bloody gore? Yep yep. Preposterously gruesome? Ofcourse! Reality?..Umm,kidding?? My friends and I would always discuss, after each movie, how terrible it'd be to have a real Jigsaw looming around among us, watching our every move, weighing our every deed, our 'appreciation' for life, and the way we live it. Judging us and playin games with us and then sealing our fates with a final "Game Over!!" chill!
Well, thinking about it, we do have Jigsaws amongst us, not one, but many. Kidding again??..Nope. Our jigsaws our our Consciences. Each day we pass without knowing what we want from life, is a point added to our own Jigsaw Hitlist. Most of us drag on, living each day as it comes, not knowing where we really want to be, many years ahead. A definitive Goal, puts an address to our destination. However far that is in time, it drives us each day, more constructively, feeding our conscience with the right fodder, as we move..instead of making it an ivy growing loose all over our entity..which wraps us to do a,heh,'Game over!' someday!
So saying, with our lives defined, even if death befalls us, we'd put up a fight to get back and live our lives till our goals are definitely achieved, or atleast try our best till we succumb, the latter being a smaller percentage of possibility, depending on our will. If it's a calamity unforeseen, well, each day has been well lived in the unswerving pursuit, so death is no death!!
Lets not feed our Jigsaws then! Lets live each day consciously, appreciating the spirit of man, and the value of Life! Hails! \m/
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Quoting from Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged':
"There is only one fundamental alternative in the universe; existence or non-existence–and it pertains to a single class of entities: to living organisms. The existence of inanimate matter is unconditional, the existence of life is not: it depends on a specific course of action. Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist. It is only a living organism that faces a constant alternative: the issue of life or death. Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action. If an organism fails in that existence. It is only the concept of "Life' that makes the concept of 'Value' possible. It is only to a living entity that things can be good or evil.
"A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
"A plant must feed itself in order to live; the sunlight, the water, the chemicals it needs are the values its nature has set it to pursue; its life is the standard of value directing its actions. But a plant has no choice of action; there are alternatives in the conditions it encounters, but there is no alternative in its function: it acts automatically to further its life, it cannot act for its own destruction.
"An animal is equipped for sustaining its life; its senses provide what is good for it or evil. It has no power to extend its knowledge or to evade it. In conditions where its knowledge proves inadequate, it dies. But so long as it lives, it acts on its knowledge, with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore with automatic safety and no power of choice, it is unable to ignore its own good, unable to decide to choose the evil and act as its own destroyer.
"Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer–and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."
"Man has no automatic code of survival. His particular distinction from all other living species is the necessity to act in the face of alternatives by means of volitional choice.A desire is not an instinct. A desire to live does not give you the knowledge required for living. And even man's desire to live is not automatic: your secret evil today is that that is the desire you do not hold. Your fear of death is not a love of life and will not give you the knowledge needed to keep it. Man must obtain his knowledge and choose his actions by a process of thinking, which nature will not force him to perform. Man has the power to act as his own destroyer–and that is the way he has acted through most of his history."
"Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice–and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man–by choice; he has to hold his life as a value–by choice; he has to learn to sustain it–by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues–by choice.
"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."
"A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality."
