The Value of a Single Moment

Chad Wathen

Blog #8 - 4/13/08

    There is a way in which we look over our lives and are forced to consider the ultimate meaning of our actions. One might go so far as to say that our time upon this earth means nothing and that as a consequence of our impending death, we have no real purpose. Others think more on the responsibility of humans to each other and therefore place meaning in the greater good of mankind. Still some would say that our lives here are not about what we would do with them, but rather what our purpose is in the divine wisdom of a watchful God. 

   
This ideology fills in every nook and cranny of Jasmine. Bharati Mukherjee gives readers an in depth look at the extents to which Indian culture glorifies mans assignments in life. No matter how large or small they might seem. Mukherjee’s character Elizabeth does her best to describe this phenomenon to her American friend Taylor exclaiming that, “a whole life’s mission might be to move a flower pot from one table to another… serving merely to put a particular person in a particular room with a certain flower (p. 60-61),” a seemingly unthinkable concept for a self-driven student.
   
The idea here is that the universe was created by God and therefore only he knows how to arrange it. Generally it’s really quite out of our hands, but in our obliviousness to his plans he still uses us to his ends. Particularly in India this is reason enough to avoid despair in one’s life, for at any moment a life event might just be one of these assignments from God. Taylor however simply retorts, “I couldn’t live in a world like yours.” “If rearranging a particle of dust is as important as discovering relativity, that’s a formula for total anarchy (p. 61).”

   
Most individuals feel responsibility for some ‘assignments’ in their lives. Some men and women promise to look after each other and their children, making this their purpose. Others choose to look after many more, but to hold true to a task you’ve only given to yourself takes great determination and self-government. To believe that God has in store a plan for you delivers hope beyond one’s own feelings and faults. In this world all lives are equally small and equally large, and there is no room left for selfish pride.