Waging the war.

"There is magic in fighting battles beyond endurance." 

- Eddie Scrap-Iron Dupris 

("Million Dollar Baby")

      As we live our daily lives, we keep waging battles. So many battles all around us, sometimes we ourselves tend to loose count of them! Those battles too evolve every moment. They are so dynamic that by the time we plan our next move, the battle scenario itself gets altered! The result of these battles are, in most cases, not easy to decipher though they are fought in and around us.
       All of us, every moment of our existence, battle for one thing or the other. Most of the times, for more than one thing. Battling with ideas, battling with thoughts, battling at job, battling in relationships, battling for social or emotional justice, battling for a peace meal, battling for solitude, battling against loneliness! Ah, what miracle are we humans - for we battle on so many turfs, all at once!
      What is extremely amazing is not that we battle so much, but that the human spirit can put up extraordinary fights one after another; that unbelievable belief which emerges only in moments of crisis; that unwavering composure that mocks at defeat in its own defeat! What is it that fuels a human soul with such legendary character?
      While in the battlefield, we all would love to win. Battling against all odds, not that the heroic warrior always wins, he does loose at times. But in a few of those lost battles are his most cherished victories! He moves on from one battle to another, unperturbed by their outcomes because all that the warrior hopes is to wage the war... undefeated! What if the battles are lost? He knows the war is not over, it shall never be over. He shall always stay undefeated in the war because he wages the war till death parts him from the war field and no warrior who dies fighting is defeated!

"For most of us, this is the aim 

Never here to be realised; 

Who are only undefeated 

Because we have gone on trying." 

- T.S.Eliot ( 'Four Quartets' )

       What makes the war legendary is that at times, only the warrior knows he is engaged in a war. Not always and not to everyone around can the warrior communicate the war he is waging. After all, legendary wars are fought in the soul and true heroes manifest only within the soul. Khalil Gibran pointed it best when he wrote - "Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite." Unwavering, the warrior wages his war in his soul, with an indifference to either the criticism or the applause that he is bestowed with. He knows Longfellow wrote the truth in his lines -

"Not in the clamour of the crowded street,

Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But, in ourselves, are triumph and defeat."

       A compromise, a loss, a wound, a betray, an unforeseen disaster are all parts and parcels along the journey of battles. However fine a strategist we are, we simply can't escape the raw realities and unpredictabilities of the battlefield. In the face of uncertainty, the warrior is certain of his faith in himself. Not that he is blessed with a monkish one-pointedness of concentration, but despite many moments of wavering thoughts and emotional crisis, he believes he can handle the situation and strives all out to handle it. The belief translates into action, as described in the epics - because to a true warrior there is no epic bigger than the war he wages.
    For a warrior, optimism is never a luxury, but a primary necessity. His optimism is his belief in his abilities. He does strategise for most of the potential negative happenings and consequences, but not for a moment does he give up his faith in life. The warrior knows that things might turn much grim than predicted, he might be left absolutely helpless; but never hopeless - his hope is in the transiency of life. He remembers his lesson from the wise Zen master that 'this too shall pass'; he shall wait with patience because that is his strongest move!
       The warrior fights all through the war, not because victory is his sole motive, but because the warrior is born to fight. His fight is not against mortal enemies, but against his own fears, which he wishes to conquer. His purpose is not to reign supreme, but to reveal to himself his own true spirit. And to each one of us, discovering the warrior within us and letting him move from one battle to another on a journey of exploring the war he is destined to wage is probably why life is bestowed on us!