Long live the system

Do you feel wronged? Do you feel oppressed, angry, losing the little sanity you have left? Be silent. Swallow your bitterness. Say, “Praise be to God, there are human beings. Millions of people are far worse off than you.” Oppressive human laws have suffocated and ruined them. Coercive and aggressive forces have crushed them, reducing them to the dust of the earth; they were dust and returned to dust. Natural laws—floods, flash floods, earthquakes—have crushed their villages and homes. The “system” of nature is no less brutal than the human “system.” Bow your head to the “system,” whether it is human tyranny over humans or the random chance of fate; you have found yourself in this place and time, and you have no right to object.

The Indian nurse knocked on the hospital room door, smiling: “Sir, we must change the white bedsheet and put on the green surgical sheet. Okay, Baba? Okay, sir.” A yellow signal indicates preparation for a procedure to take a biopsy from a tumor in your abdomen. It might be cancer, bringing the end closer, or it might be a benign tumor, delaying the end slightly. It makes no difference. The issue is always one of time, of duration. “The eternal moment is the one in which you live the now.” I think Nietzsche said it, or perhaps one of the “madmen” who was once sane but has now become officially insane after having his neck caught in the “system’s” collar.

“Baba, put this on for the operation.” A white gown with frayed edges, open at the back. It does not reveal Jennifer Lopez’s back; it exposes a sagging back marked by years of fleeting joy, lost in the storm of youth and beautiful days, now settled into the old age approaching the end.

“Baba, wait.” Hours pass. You wait and wait. You must continue fasting. Such are the laws of the system. You wait, and then you wait again. You have nothing but waiting; waiting is the key to relief. This is the wisdom of the system. The entire day passes. No one tells you what is happening.

You leave the room, angry and gloomy. You ask: What happened? Nothing. The radiologist surgeon has left, forgot about the case, is restless. It is Thursday, and Thursday must be a day of rest—Friday, Saturday. Wait. There is an extended time ahead of us, and the system wants it so. Be silent. This is the administration. This is the system. This is your fate. Long live the system. Neglect or indifference, apathy—so be it. The important thing is that the system survives.