{"id":509,"date":"2010-09-09T07:41:45","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T07:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/2010\/09\/09\/dr-gopee-32\/"},"modified":"2020-05-10T20:50:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T16:50:11","slug":"dr-gopee-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/dr-gopee-32\/","title":{"rendered":"The Point of Life\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A friend sent me the above pictures, accompanied by the message below, including the quote from George Bernard Shaw:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

REMEMBER:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Time takes away everything from us….Be Good And Do Good To Anybody\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And Everybody In The World…\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because Skin, Face & Personality Will\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Never Stay But Your Work And\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Name Will Always Be There… \u2018Progress is impossible without changes, and those who can never change their opinion can neither change the world nor change themselves.\u2019<\/em> <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

— George Bernard Shaw<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think that we should consider ourselves very fortunate indeed if, firstly, we managed to live up to 90 and secondly, if we were able to maintain the sparkle on our face and the grace which are evident when we look at the aged former Miss India. May she live to be a hundred!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The title of this article is adapted from \u2018What\u2019s the Point of Life?\u2019 by C. Gallozi which appeared in this paper\u2019s issue of 27 August, that is two weeks ago. And how many things have happened \u2013 changed — in these two weeks, both to me and to the world around. I am sure I have added a few more wrinkles, but I haven\u2019t had the time to count them in!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On second thoughts, I would not waste my time with such a futile exercise though, because there are so many more important things to do. Like, when I saw the title of Gallozi\u2019s article and started reading it, I came across what I could call a few definitions of life that reminded me of some more technical ones that I had been familiar with when I was studying medicine. Here are some from the article:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Life is nothing more than a sexually transmitted disease, and a terminal one at that.\u2019 Hmm\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018All life is, is a substance that temporarily prevents our bodies from rotting.\u2019 We start rotting, meaning ageing, from the time we are born, don\u2019t we? In fact, scientists studying the phenomenon have found ageing changes, known as atherosclerosis, in the arteries of young children. Which brings us to the other view of life expressed in that article, as follows:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Life is like a taxi. Whether you are an active participant or not, the metre keeps ticking.\u2019 Make that a few more wrinkles, or atherosclerotic plaques\u2026 things done to you, kind of, unless you think you are the one doing? Try this next one \u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018Life is something you do when you can\u2019t sleep.\u2019 As we age, we all experience an inversion of the sleep pattern: sleep earlier, and get up earlier too. Or taking time to fall asleep, and then waking up in the dead of the night. How many sheep can you go on counting every night? Some people resort to taking sleeping pills. And sometimes the latter do the exact opposite in elderly people. Dilemma\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember a definition that was quoted by Swami Tejomayananda, Spiritual Head of Chinmaya Mission Worldwide, when he was here in 2003: \u2018Life is what happens to you when you are busy planning other things.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Think about this, and you will be amazed to find out how true it is. One moment you are in a given situation, and next moment tout a bascul\u00e9. We have an illusion of control, but unless we take a long term perspective, once this illusion is shattered, we can shatter too. Something to ponder upon, and brace ourselves up.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are some more definitions. This one was from a biologist: \u2018Life is a state of ceaseless activity.\u2019 And this is what physicist Jean Bernal thought: \u2018Life is a dynamic equilibrium in a polyphasic system.\u2019\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I liked best what George Eliot wrote, and which is found in Gallozi\u2019s article: \u2018What do you live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?\u2019\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There could, I believe, be no nobler purpose to living than that, and when we take a look around at what\u2019s happening in the world, it seems to be an urgent necessity. But I strongly recommend all readers to go read that article, for there are many more gems that they will discover for themselves. And discovery is joy, which is also a supreme purpose of life. And so enjoy\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on <\/em>9 September 2010<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[24821,21186,103,24822,24820,3588],"class_list":["post-509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society","tag-c-gallozi","tag-chinmaya-mission-worldwide","tag-dr-r-neerunjun-gopee","tag-jean-bernal","tag-point-of-life","tag-swami-tejomayananda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/MT-Logokk.jpg?fit=1200%2C880&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-8d","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}