I have been in the battlefield for the past year and I realized that there is no dearth of the lessons that you learn while fighting. How sheltered are our childhood lives--how unaware are we of what it really means to grow up, to leave the shade of the trees and venture out into scorching heat! The definitive is what we are always used to, what we know and understand, what exists is what we believe and what is known is what we have faith in--the tenets of that happy world of primary colors. It is only when the colors on the palette of life begin to mix that we comprehend the significance of nebulousness.
Ambiguity and nebulousness had always been uncomfortable concepts for me--everything had to be clearly defined and structured. How could you believe something or even rely on it if it were not defined in black and white? Faith was directly proportional to the degree of certainty. The beauty of uncertainty was unknown till I stepped into this phase of life where love, friendship, events and circumstances--everything can be unexpected and uncertain. Then what carries us through, what propels us to the next step, makes us look forward to moving forward in the maze? Faith. Surprised? I was! But it is true--what has instilled the deepest and most faith in my mind is uncertainty. The faith stems from the knowledge that every cave has an end and when you reach that end the brilliance of sunshine and the air of freedom are yours to claim. It stems from the certainty that underlies every uncertain period--the certainty of closure, the certainty of inner peace when you do not know fear. The last is the word which defines our reactions, shapes our thoughts and controls our ability to be peaceful and happy. We dread consequences as long as we fear them, we will situations, we expect from the future as long as long as fear gnaws at our minds and churns our thoughts. When we let fear fly away, we let peace enter and then the future is no longer a cause for concern, for even in the midst of the labyrinth of uncertainty, we have found our faith, we have found our essence. In the words of the poet, Humbert Wolfe:
If it must be so, let's not weep or complain
If I have failed, or you, or life turned sullen.
We have had these things, they do not come again.
But the flag still flies, and the city has not fallen.
