To be or not to be?

Have you experienced one of those moments in life that everything that comes to your road is pointing to one subject?

Some call it synchronicity, some call it pure coincidence...and a particular friend of mine thinks the whole thing is because a person is sensitive to that subject at that moment of time, therefore she notices it more frequent but the frequency of happening it, is exactly like always....

I do belong to the camp of synchronicity....but in all honesty most of the time I think "WHO CARES WHAT IS THE REASON. IT IS HAPPENING AND THAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE"!

So in last couple of weeks, I hear sentences like this so often:
"Oh you are pregnant with your second one, how brave you are!", "I am not sure how can I bring kids to this world. Look at the situation in the world, the recession, the genocide, Darfur...", "I think I have to have full self awareness before become a parent", "Kudos to you, you are really brave to put your heart for more anxiety, heartbreak and fear out there", "with this terrible world, I am so fearful to become a parent".....and so on.

Interestingly I hear these things from strangers in the grocery shop, patients in my clinic, my acquaintances, my friends and even read them in different blogs (mommy blogs and non mommy blogs)!

The whole thing put me in a loop, one of those that you think and think and think and then you realize you just went so deep that you don't even know which way is up and which way down?!

Today a patient told me something that made me come out of my loop and have an answer to it all...at least an answer for myself. She said: "I am always afraid if one day in the future the child will tell me: why did you bring me to life? What is so good about it when there is so much terrible things around us".

Believe it or not, I am not that much out of touch with disasters in our world. Not only by nature I lean toward pessimism - believe it or not! - but thanks to my profession I come in touch with unbearable individuals' suffering: from people as young as 3 years old kids battling with sever terminal cancer, to men and women in their prime of life going through blindness and so much more thanks to MS, to people that are hitting the bottom of the abyss of depression, to a wife that witnesses his husband disappears right in front of her eyes after 45 years of marriage thanks to Alzheimer's.....I see men and women at any age, healthy in body and sick in mind, go through many different kind of addictions and throw away what ever time they have on this earth.

I am not blind to the cruelty of our race, to the rape and genocide that happens ALL the time at one part or the other of this planet we call home. My heart aches for the children that are being sold right at this minute as I am typing these meaningless words. I go to a rage with the thought of child abduction and child slavery. I feel a sinking sensation every time that I think of the women that has to sell themselves to bring food for their children....

I am aware of the pressure that still is on women...no matter which part of the world they live in. Some are as obvious as in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia and some are as hidden as in US, Canada and Europe.

It is a long time now that I realized that human race is the most cruel and senseless of all the animals...a race that can kill another human so merciless, or worse than that, a race that can torture and abuses another being in every sense of the word....

I also live in this world that the cost of life is going to the roof, that soon we will need a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread....I am living in the same world that politicians are talking sweet and acting cruel, in the same world that the word "patriotism" is being used so carelessly and as a mean for any action, in the same land that freedom is just a myth and deep down the fear rules us all....

I live in this world that "Machiavelli" would have been so proud of his "Prince" every day of the year. I am breathing the same dingy air of lie, deceit and corruption. I am living in the same society that the race to gain power is the highest nobility of humanity, a world that intolerance for the individual rights for life is nothing but poetry.....

Shall I go on my friends?....

Believe me, I am not telling you all this to persuade you to become a parent. I am as "pro choice" as it comes, for EVERYTHING IN LIFE. I believe people make choices for their lives and all of those choices deserves the highest respect of all, even if we disagree...especially if we disagree!

Most of the time I question the actions and not the intention. So I am the advocate of choice no question in it. Those that know me well, know that I actually believe, WITH ALL MY HEART, that not everyone needs to be a parent - or should be for that matter- in order to fulfill their lessons in life. We come to this world for a reason or two and not necessarily that means we have to bare children of our own or care for any child at all to fulfill our "destiny" - what ever this controversial word means!

But I am going through all these meaningless words one after another to ask you only one point:

Have you ever looked at sunrise? did a sunset ever took your breath away? Have you smelled a flower and felt mesmerized by it? Did you listen to the silence of the nature and think of the grandness of it all? Have you looked at "Botticelli's primavera", listened to "Moonlight sonata" and gazed in the vision of "Gaudi" and felt in awe of the ability of another human being? Did you think of mother Theresa and her unbelievable selflessness despite the deceit of the religion, the abyss of her depression and the darkness of the world? Have you looked up in the starry night and went to a silent prayer for the vastness of the world?

Have you ever fell in love? Did you feel the ache of every cell of your body in the yearning of touching the hands of the beloved? Have you gazed in the eyes of the lover and sank in there for all eternity? Did you ever feel love...even if it was supposed to come to an end one day in the near or distant future?

If the answer to any of these is "yes"...then my friend, do you think was it fair for you to miss this "life"? Was it better for you to not have been born? did you prefer to miss the feeling of LOVE in ANY shape or form?

After all:

"Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."