Tribal Dengue Potion

When dengue strikes. The body will be fevered and covered with rashes. I am too deep in the plantation and faraway from civilization to check into a medical outpost. Besides I’ve never been a fan of hospitals. Never trusted physicians and their quackery either.

I will just have to take my chances. A tribal cure for dengue is to consume the extract of young papaya leafs. Let’s see how it goes.

Life I am reminded is very fragile in the frontier. Some years back ago while preparing poison darts with a few braves deep in the jungle, one of them accidentally pricked himself – everyone fell dead silent, as they all knew what was going to happen and soon the elders of the tribe began to sing songs and assure this young brave his passage to the other side would be smooth and safe. Within the hour, he had past on to the other side.

I don’t expect many people back home to understand this attitude towards death – but then again, it is, what it is….to me.

I will not be blogging for a while.

Darkness signing off.

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To most people. The subject of death is by no means a pleasant subject. Definitely not a topic that I would recommend if you’re trying to impress your date (that could possibly explain why I wasn’t very hot with girls during my averagely miserable university days).

Death. The subject. Will I imagine be something always morbid and macabre to most humans. Understandably so. As since the main preoccupation of the average person really only involves marinating in his own self importance – ever seeking pleasures, excitement and gratification – there is really no impetus for man or any man to pause and ponder seriously about when his life will end.

But in the frontier – death is omnipresent. One is always mindful of the crumbly nature of mortality and how inept and ill prepared modern man to fend of death.

As a consequence for the man who turns the wheel of life in the frontier – death. Far from being a subject to be shunned, is the skeleton key that unlocks the seeming mystery of life. As it is only thru the understanding of death that one can begin to truly understand life and why we were put on this planet in this timeline – for death will always be part of the cycle of life. At another level of understanding – one may perhaps posit both life and death are really one of the same reality. Hence, by understanding the purpose of death we also understand the purpose of life.

It is only in the contemplation of death that we really begin to understand and appreciate our relative importance and scale of things, we so often take for granted – our relationship with our loved ones – in the shadow of death, suddenly, we realize they too are fleeting – our health, good looks, vigor, élan, panache – all these things we regularly take for granted will all…come to past – they will all shrivel up, die, turn to dust and return to the earth whence they came from.

I once spoke to a soldier who boasted he was trained to fight in dark with special goggles – he showed the gizmo to me and wondered why I was not impressed. When I told him a mosquito hardly the size of pin head could snuff out his life like blowing out a candle – this boy suddenly fell silent deep in meditative thought…he understand how small he was in the greater scheme of things – he was touched by the cold hand of death.

Not long ago in a formal dinner when a old wealthy planter threatened me. I leaned close to him when no one was looking and whispered. You speak at great lengths about power, but you can’t even control your bladder. Suddenly, the old planter shifted uneasily and soon he was lost in his own thoughts. At the end of the dinner he apologized to me and introduced me to his son as a man who can be trusted and relied on when his time comes – death had given him wisdom – he too was touched by the cold hand of death.

Yes death it seems is life’s greatest invention – if it did not exist, mankind would probably have to invent it – as only in shadow of death does life acquire the full meaning of what it truly hold.

Death….it even softens the hardest of hearts, restores one to another with cords of love, destroys differences and nourishes the idea of brotherhood – as though so many things my differ from one man to another – we are all without exception subject to the common destiny of death.

This is wisdom.’