The world is a strange and
mysterious place. A close observation of what transpires in the world today
provokes an awful wonder at the many contradictions that characterized human
life. On one occasion, I was at a clinic close to our house when I had an experience
that prompted spontaneous reflections. A woman carrying a 22 weeks old pregnancy
was rushed to the clinic; she was in a premature labour. Her family was ready
to pay anything in monetary terms to save the endangered life of the baby...
Eventually, despite all efforts
by the emergency medical team, the baby was expelled prematurely from the womb
and died some minutes later due to respiratory complications. The weeping,
mourning and grief that filled the air for the loss of a little baby yet unborn
was unimaginable. It was really pathetic.
However, just down the corridor
in an adjacent room, on the same floor, another woman was comfortably having an
abortion to terminate her pregnancy. Coincidentally, this second pregnancy was
only a little more than 23 weeks old. This second woman did not need her baby. In
what seemed to be a twist of fate, she threatened to commit suicide should the
doctor refuse to help her procure the abortion. She eventually prevailed on the
physician by offering a huge amount of money in cash. Her baby was aborted.
Herein lies the great
contradiction. One woman is dying of grief because her baby has died, while
another is threatening o commit suicide rather than let her baby live. One woman
is ready to give everything she has to save her baby, while another will do the
same to kill hers. The question is, what would each of the women think at encountering
the other and hearing her story? Surely, each would think the other is insane.
“One man’s meat” they say “is
another man’s poison”. But, if really what is good for the goose is also good for
the gender, as we say, then why is it so different when it comes to such
crucial existential issues as those involving human life? Why are our interests
so ambivalent?
Sequel to this development, we
believe that we can only find a befitting answer to these problems when we are
able to unravel the puzzling mysteries of the human mind. Until then, we may
continue to live in a world full of surprises and contradictions.
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