Why I choose to look at life like it’s a framed narrative?

Disclaimer: I am more spiritual than I am religious. I think the distinction is important. I am an Engineer who believes in science but I also believe that there are things that are just beyond proof. Sounds contrary, doesn’t it?

My wise Grandpa once said, “Don’t question life too much. You will never understand it”. So obviously, I have been questioning life. A lot. It all started with a book I read a few weeks ago.

Recently, after an uncommonly warm rainy day in the middle of December, I got the flu. I was sick and weepy. I was on PTO and in bed all day feeling miserable. So I decided to read this book by Paul Kalanithi called “When Breath Becomes Air”.

My friends told me not to read that book because they thought I’d end up crying. As usual, I decided to ignore them.

At first, I was in awe of the clarity Paul’s stories conveyed. I do not consider myself a novelist but I understand to an extent how difficult it is to get across a point. I thought “Maybe his prognosis helped him express everything so clearly”. This guy succeeded as an author by my standards.

And then I got to the epilogue written by his wife, Lucy Kalanithi. Now that, rattled me. It finally hit me, that this book I have been reading since a few days, was written by a person going through something that we all dread. This person faced it. It was no longer just a book for me. Weird, because I read about his personal life written by the man himself but I did not feel close to him at all. But when I read about him through the eyes of a person who had loved and lost him, I fell apart. I cried hard.

This prompted me to ask a pressing question: What is the whole point of life when good people face bad things? So in search of an answer, I turned to religion first. In Hinduism, we believe in Karma.

Karma is essentially causation. It is a series of chain reactions that an event causes. Sort of like The butterfly effect. Only life is not a deterministic system. Even if “Karma” sounds like a weird word to describe the outcome of every event that happens in a segue to every conscious or unconscious decision we make.

Karma overlaps but briefly with morality. Morality is dependent on your intent while Karma is dependent on actions. It isn’t “If I hurt someone now, I will end up having a bad life” or “ I have to suffer in my 20s to enjoy my 40s”. Instead, you ask yourself, “Why did I hurt this person? Why did I make this choice?”

Now, that will help you move past your moral dilemma and look at Karma for what it actually is: Karma is a chain of events that you cannot control.
Why am I here? I am here because I simply am. Because my parents decided to have me. You don’t experience bad events because you’re a bad person but because you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Causation certainly takes out the magical realism for me but puts things into perspective. It’s sort of like a framed narrative. There’s always a bigger picture to life.

This train of thought helps me focus on myself and keeps me sane, which is an added bonus.But again, karma is not justice and sometimes certain concepts are just beyond comprehension. [Like the definition of Good and Evil within a larger context]

Maybe I am not supposed to understand life. Maybe I am just supposed to live it.

Maybe my Grandpa was right.