Belief! Unconditional infallible belief! The boon of humanity. The panacea to all suffering. That which bestows grace in adversity. The belief that one is an extension of something larger than themselves. Where does it come from? It comes from within. Why do we need it? Because we feel helpless. Why do we deify it? Because we need idelogical totems to look up to, to fall back on, and to provide us with courage, hope and strength, and, most importantly, to provide us salvation eternal.
The question of belief and the answer it provides, in my humble observation, are to do with death and beyond, and, life and its obvious inequities and suffering. The fact that "we" or the collective "I" cease to exist when the circulation to the brain is cut off is still a horrifying thought to most of us. I am sure there are plenty of other ways to cease existing, but I shall not be listing them here for the fear of making this rather morbid topic downright macabre. But I will reveal my thoughts on the afterlife later. For now, let me tell you a story.
In the town of Bambaboor, they had a peculiar economy. Since eons, the only commodity in the town was "phood". People stored it, grew it, sold it, decorated it, put it in banks, invested it, and even ate it!! There was a simple classification of people in the town. The minority was the phood-rich class. Such was there affluence, that they even build houses with it. The majority was the phood-poor class. They were so poor, that they worked for phood, but those were the lucky ones. As with all economies, the minority could not generate enough service-demand to employ all the poor people. So many people had no phood. So they started starving.
The kinder rich people gave away some phood! But couldnt decide how much to give away. Surely they couldn't give away the million-strong phood stock in the banks. So they were very disatisfied with the continuing equity and its conflict with their own continued well-being. One day a stranger came to town, and was quite surprised to see the rich hoarding phood of all kinds, and others dying from the lack of it. He said to the poor people, "This is not right, I come from a town much mightier than Bambaboor, and its called Thae-Ven. And there everyone has "phood". To go there you need a key. And I am the ONLY one who has this key." He took pictures of himself with the key and distributed it to everyone as proof. He also laid down some rules for those who wished to attain this key. The poor were happy, they now lived there lives in the same misery but were hopeful, rumors abounded about the beauty and the abundance of Thae-Ven. And people spoke of it with great joy.
The leader of the rich was preplexed, and wanted to know how they could get to Thae-Ven, surely it would be a place which would rid them of their guilt and the conundrum of plenty among poverty. The stranger told them the same thing as he had told the poor. The rich were delighted and took the instructions and the picture of the key and went back to their lives, few even gave away all their phood! But the poverty continued...some grew hopeless again...
A few years later, another stranger came to town. And spoke thus... "This is not right, I come from a town much mightier than Bambaboor, and its called Yawee. And there everyone has "phood" and then some. To go there you need a key. And I am the ONLY one who has this key."
The aspirants for Thae-Ven were quite un-happy with this imposter! Some spoke of throwing him out of the town. So they confronted him about his lies. He said he was the chosen one, the only one. And he produced a parchment to prove it. Some rich folks had a change of heart, some went home, some poor people were convinced, some continued dying. The rest is history...
