The End of the Story

One of the very old but unanswered questions is how it is that most people don't think about the end of the life story, and they don't try to learn from those who have been gone. 

 

We humans, no matter what religion, ideology, intellect, and life principles we believe in, we know that the end of this life is death. There is no doubt about this, and we witness it continuously. The world we live in does not hold anything forever. We know that rocks break and become dust due to rain and wind, wind blows the soil, the same wind depetals flowers, trees dry up and rot, animals feed each other or die a natural death, just as humans kill each other or die due to longevity or various diseases, and even planets and stars  last for certain period of time. Nothing in this world lasts forever.

Each of us has a unique taste for life, and we have chosen a different form or type of living. Each of us believes in a series of values. Our religious and social beliefs and behavior, and what we call the principles of life, are different from others’ principles. We grow up in a family with certain values, but the closer we get to the larger community, the more our values assimilate to that of society. We witness many children who select a different path in terms of morality, religion, politics, and society than the path their parents have set for them. But in the end, they all lead to the same path, and that is final breath, or death.

One of the valuable types of knowledge is history. Past and historical events show us what path our ancestors had taken, and how this path led them to the right or wrong destiny. For example, if we look at the policy of the Israeli government towards the Palestinians, not only from the historical point of view, but also as it is regularly discussed in the media, the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is in harmony with the behavior of the Nazis towards the Jews in the first half of last century. The difference is that the Nazis killed and expelled the Jews from the country where both peoples lived, while the Zionists are not only immigrants themselves, but also seek to expel the Palestinians from their ancestral land. In terms of social relations, historical similarities can often be found. Much of what we do today has happened before and acknowledging that may prevent us from repeating the same mistakes. For example, historical wars are described in detail in books. As a result of one ethnic war, which begins with geographical extensions, and if its goals have been reached, the geographical divisions will change again with another war. An example is the extending geographical area of Russian Empire by the Russian tsars, which was inherited by Soviets and extended to other Eastern European countries. This new empire, however, finally collapsed in less than a century. Even in the relationship between two people, the best method of coexistence can be found through historical research.

A historical memory that we must all have heard of or seen, which has also been the subject of many stories, is hoarding money. Depending on their methods, people use different ways to increase and expand their properties. The reason for that is the importance any society applies to wealth, and wealth can generally buy material needs, and even some nonmaterial necessities. When we do not have wealth, we can pretend that we are rich and live in comfort, however it is very difficult to think like this. This makes us indulge in unhealthy ways to increase our wealth. Of course, depending on the personality of different people, their way of increasing wealth differs as well. The problem is that as soon as we see a rich person, we automatically assume that the person is intelligent and much wiser than others. For this reason, this type of thinking has become a part of our culture, that we try to show others that we have more wealth than that person perceives. Of course, there are those who have reached a certain degree of wealth due to their intelligence and perseverance. But in general, the superiority of wealth is not the superiority of character. It can be concluded that a person whose way of thinking is to overtake others financially, instead of keeping only what he needs, and sharing what he does not need among others, is not a altruistic person. Of course, from a general point of view, the largest issue is the system of wealth distribution by governments. As we think it to be the government’s responsibility when we witness a homeless person sleeping in the streets or in any other public place, the same government is responsible when we see a posh and expensive palace owned by one person. Regardless of what level of education, knowledge, experience, and wisdom people have, and what family they come from, natural resources should be shared equally among them. If a person, due to personal or family reasons, does not have education, skills, and perseverance like others, this should not affect his material life, and cause his poverty and lack of livelihood, when compared to others. A government represents all the people of society equally; one vote per person. Therefore, the government should try to ensure that the wealth of the society is distributed among the members of that society equally.

Although wealth generally follows status, it does not require it. Having a business position or status is by itself one of the ways to seek superiority. Those who have fame or status generally use it to get material benefits. It can be safely said that in all societies, generally those who have achieved fame and status consider themselves to be excluded from the rest of the population, and free to do what others are not allowed to. Those who remember Iran before the revolution know that some celebrities or the ones in high positions; politically, economically, artistically, scientifically, and culturally; were on a different social rank.  However, after the revolution and overnight they descended into a void. In addition, those whose artistic or political field or any other field that made them famous were against what the Islamic regime believed in, not only lost their positions and fame, but many of them were tried and some were killed. A vast majority of them, of course, escaped from Iran and scattered in Europe and especially the United States. Mullahs, although they could not reach the level sophistication of those people before the revolution in terms of knowledge and education in artistic, scientific, political, and other fields, and they will never reach them, just by having the police and military power in their hands, they started leading all government organizations. We know that the Islamic regime was able to establish itself in Iran only with the approval of the United States and the western countries, which were dominated by the United States. Currently, by dividing political positions between themselves, mullahs have seized all the pillars of the country, and it is very difficult for Iranian people, majority of which hate their government, to expel them from government positions, again because of their police and military powers.

We humans are interested in similarity and contrasts, although they are on opposite sides of each other! It means that we always try to separate ourselves from those whom we consider to be socially inferior, and at the same time we approach those whom we consider to be socially superior. One of the means to achieve this goal is fashion. Fashion separates people from a certain group and connects them to another group. Those who are financially superior to others can improve in this manner. Fashion does not only mean clothes and makeup, but also all the necessities of life and transportation and even a special way of thinking. One of the characteristics of Iranians is our love of luxury, which stems from feelings of superiority and competition through extravagance. Of course, the older we get and the closer we get to the end of our lives, the less we enjoy this characteristic. Although until the end of our lives, we strive to increase our assets, regardless of the fact that we will die one day, and someone else will benefit from our efforts of increasing our wealth over the years!

Many have never understood the purpose of life. Some of them end their lives by committing suicide because they had the wrong perception of life. Many people commit homicide, whom we wished committed suicide! A clear example is the many wars that leaders of countries ignite for geographical expansion or for ideological reasons. What we call politics should be a system that can equally distribute the benefits of that society among those who are included in that geopolitical area. In most cases, the benefits of that policy are distributed according to the size or percentage of those involved in that policy, and not equally. For example, in capitalist systems, the blessings of that system are divided according to the financial power of people. This inequality in the distribution of resources causes political, religious, and ideological conflicts. Of course, traits such as pride, hatred, anger, revenge, jealousy, and strong emotions aroused by such characters can also have fatal results. Everyone's opinions are respected and it is clear that people always seek to have their opinions respected and everyone acts according to those opinions. If those beliefs include only that person and do not affect the society as a whole, it remains up to that person to act according to those beliefs. An example of that is headscarves worn by women, where a person prepares his clothes according to his beliefs, and it is not the duty of the government to interfere and decide how much the person's clothes should cover her body. Any opinion that relates to the whole society should be put to a vote, and based on everyone's vote, that opinion or idea should be acted upon.

The most basic human emotion is love, and this sometimes creates trouble! One of the biggest problems of human beings is their love and affection for those who are older than them, and when the elders leave this world, it becomes a sorrow for the remaining younger generation. This generally applies to children's love for parents, or generations before those parents. Traditionally, however,  young people have love and relationships with other young people who are in the same age category. This means that in addition to parents, there are spouses and children who are loved by them, and the loss of parents, which is normal, will not cause them a crisis. Generally, men marry women who are younger than them. In fact, considering that the average life expectancy of women is longer than men, the opposite should be done, that is, women marry men who are younger than them, and vice versa. In order not to have a crisis in our lives, we should always keep in mind that our love for another is temporary, and the possibility that both lives will end at the same time is very rare. Therefore, let's give the most love to our beloved, with the knowledge that love will end at some point.

There are those who always think about the world or the place they entered this world from, and the place or the world they will go after death. Some of these people have invented other worlds for themselves. There are others who have only thought about the world they are sure of, i.e. the current world, and have always tried to discover this vast world. Astronomers have studied the moons and suns, which they have discovered through telescopes. They also introduced us to the greater world we live in, as far as they were able to access them. Other scientists have studied the globe we live on and have made known to us what is happening on the tops of the highest mountains and in the depths of the deepest waters. Our world is so vast and amazing that it does not necessitate the creation of another world. It is important to be aware of humans and other living beings, and of nature and what is happening around us, throughout our lives, whether short or long, and this awareness causes pleasure. The beautiful world we live in colors our lives if we always think about its beauty. As it was mentioned several times in this passage, the end of everything is death. Now that we know that out of billions of sperm, only we have had the chance to enter this world, why not consider it thoroughly, and enjoy its beauties. Let's try to think about friendship instead of war and hatred, and end this short opportunity that we call life with happiness.