To survive, we need some few fundamental things, what to eat, what to wear and what to protect ourselves with. But who wants just to survive? Who wants just to satisfy these needs and call it a life? Why life needs to be more complicated?
We are not content with surviving anymore, we want more, we want company, we want human connexion, we want to be social, it became a must to our eyes, we fear loneliness like we fear our enemies, and we need people just how our bodies need to be fed.
Human connexion...what a twisted necessity. Humans interaction are simply conflicts that are painted with different color, that are assigned to with different terms: friendship, partnership, marriage, brotherhood... Each one is fighting for their own selves, even if it is only hidden underneath. We fight for our identity, we fight for what we need from this interactions, we fight for their care, their attention, their time. It is an infinite fight, that no harmony or chemistry could delete, no love or selflessness could make it disappear. It is what we are, it is what defines us as humans.
And there is nothing wrong with being in a constant fight, this conflict set an odd but pleasant and satisfying balance.
It is just crazy to think that we can't actually live alone, that loneliness will drive us insane while fathoming at the same time that we are born alone and we die alone. What does it have to be a plural between these two intervals: birth and death.
It appears every year we add to our lives only makes us weaker, more vulnerable, fragile and more sad. Weaker because our thirst for human connexion gets more necessary and sad because it never gets quenched. Nothing satisfies us anymore, the expectations we nourish our thoughts with grow over us and over everything others could do for us. Nothing is enough anymore.
But how can we demand that many requests from beings that are so afar from what we are. Who gives us the power to claim love, care and attention while we have done nothing to deserve it?
Everyone wants to feel loved, needed, special in others eyes, or maybe just one pair of eyes. But if everyone wants it, who is left out there to make us feel this way? We can't give what we already lack, or can we?
It might seem that there is only a fine line between surviving and living, but these two concept are like black and white, north and south, land and sky...We can't be content with only surviving because living takes our breath away. And we like our breath to be taken away. It is such an irony to realize that the only things that are keeping us alive are the near fatal experiences, the challenges, the troubles. The only time we felt alive are the most dangerous situations we have been through, we feel life when our hearts skip a beat, when we feel butterflies in our stomach and when we forget how to breath. Life is too tight to death even if it's its complete opposite.
My mind went through many thoughts in the process of writing this article, and I find the messiest articles are the most worth reading ones. Because it is such a raw and authentic image to the writer's mind, it is an open door to explore a universe of ideas. And each idea is as interesting as the previous or next one.
My relationship with religion is like an infinite roller coaster ride. Sometimes I am up to the skies and sometimes it gets very low. And I grew myself to the idea that faith will never be a constant phenomenon, like any other relationship, it needs to be nourished and maintained.
I am from a conservative family; as I grow up, religious duties were an obligation I had to follow like any other parental order. The 2 only ways for me to obtain the pride of my parents were studies and religion.
But as I get older and less intellectually dependent, I realized two fundamental things: first, I am so blessed to be raised among a religious family, and second, is it wrong not to feel fulfilled with this religion? Is it normal to have doubts from time to time? or should I just stop using my brain and follow blindly?
This kind of confusion and struggle you start to experience with yourself, once you matured up a little bit and your mind becomes more open to all sort of ideas you couldn't think of when you were younger.
And now, reaching this age, I started thinking to myself, was it a better way for my parents to inculcate religion into our daily lives, isn't the moral and spiritual part more important than the "do's and don't's" part?
I think what bothered me and what will bother me for a long period of time, is how religious society, no matter the religion, emphasizes on things and decides to ignore other aspects that are as important as praying five times a day.
The religion we follow now is custom made, tailored to society needs. We got used to gossiping behind people's back, yelling, cursing, and still we somehow manage to get so offended when we see someone drinking, eating during Ramadan, or dressing up a bit too tight.
The first thing we tell our girls is to cover their hair before teaching them any kind of basic moral values. Because of course, physical appearances get more attention and a better care.
The only way we motivate our kids to pray is through punishment, reminding them of hell and how aggressively and unmercifully they will get burned up alive if they refused to obey.
It is tremendously saddening to see that religion didn't succeed to purify our core from its roots, and it only cleaned the superficial layers of ourselves.
I may sound like I am blaming religion or society, but in fact I am blaming none of them. A series of events, from brainwashing people to infusing cultural beliefs with religion, led us to this reality.
I wish my elders took some time to explain to me the mental benefits of meditation and how empowering it is to the soul, I wish I have heard the rewards before the punishment,I wish I had imagined heaven before hell, I wish I have received more encouragement than judgment, and I simply wish for the day that religion will brings us together and not tears us apart.
In the end, I would like to mention that I have succeeded to structure my relationship with religion afar from what society wants me to believe, and I am very grateful for this faith, a faith that keeps my principals high and shown, a faith that surrounds me with peace and self-acceptance, a faith that helps me to be a better human being. And I think the religion that doesn't allow you to feel this way is more damaging than beneficial.
Religion is before anything else a spiritual bond that links you vertically (not horizontally) to your personal idea of a higher power, it is everyone's duty to protect that bond and no let it be influenced.
