By Mankular Lamin Gashnga
That life is stranger than a movie or a dream is both a serendipity and foreboding. That the coronavirus has happened however, has proven that the latter is more likely, as Murphy’s law states, anything that can go wrong will go wrong. What is life anyway?There is not even a technical definition of what life actually is. NASA defines life as, ‘A self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution,’ which sounds too trite to be defining my life by, to be honest. I rather like Sushmita Sen’s definition of life – that it is neither a Midsummer Night’s Dream nor The Tempest but A Comedy of Errors to be lived As You Like It, which I thought was a very brilliant take on Shakespeare who himself through Macbeth had defined life as a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. When I had always personally defined my life as, ‘A Moveable Feast’ as Hemmingway, the virus is about and having one instead.
I see some sense of sadness in my above musings because they make me thinkof the underlying sadness that life is all about, transient, fleetingand wanting of real meaning. They make me think of the inherent sadness that is found in songs and poems about life. “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts” sang PB Shelley.
Seeing the WHO declaring that the virus might be here to stay is more depressing. In fact, reading the news every morning is depressing. Seeing people wearing masks and gloves is depressing. Having to bathe every time we return home is depressing. Having to wash one’s hands every so often is depressing. Being continuously afraid of contact with surfaces and other people is depressing. Not being able to move freely is depressing. Having to take a curfew pass every time I need to move about is depressing. Having to listen to the long virus ringtone every time I call anyone is depressing. Having to home-school my children is boring if not outright depressing. Nonetheless, this is what life is all about now and we are condemned to living it.
The virus has brought to the fore basic priorities and has nullified every unnecessary pretence we can make as we cling on to dear life. All politics is gone, all religion is gone, all social stratification of class and caste is gone, all man-made boundaries are gone. Man is not on top of the food chain; the virus is. Man is not the measure of all things at least if he is not able to find a vaccine. Man’s life is on the verge of being eclipsed by a non-living organic virus.
That it happens at the same time when man’s life is on the verge of being eclipsed by mechanical inorganic artificial intelligence is also very thought-provoking. It means that today if the virus and my computer will evolve smarter than I do, my life will come to mean absolutely nothing. My life therefore hangs in the balance.
Even as I sit at home locked down, the virus is expanding its territory by pushing all of my social life, my business life, my dreams and ambitions nearer to nothingness. At the same time, even as I sit at home locked down unable to fulfil most of my primary functions, my computer and my phone are expanding their function as supplements. So much so that somewhere in a virtual reality now my avatar is more alive than I am, perhaps sunbathing at the best beaches, going in to dine at my favourite restaurants, doing things I had only dreamed of doing; not to mention the eerie possibility that it might even be able to take over my job someday, if the virus has not yet eliminated it. Moreover, my avatar will never die – which again is very depressing when you come to think about it. With climate change expediting the possibility of my extinction, perhaps aliens are more alive than I am.
Therefore, I see no greater chance to define what life is all about than in this episode of our lives. What does it mean to be alive? I see two things: To be able to stay on top of the food chain and to control climate change; while also being able to manoeuvre biology and quantum mechanics to the benefit of mankind – which are difficult to achieve, no more than finding the correct vaccine. I still hope. Until then, as a human being, I don’t know why I remember the enigmatic Kasper Hauser’s cry, ‘Oh! Mother! It’s a hard, hard life!’