Hakuna Matata

Why do we all choose to live? Why is it that the people with the worst lives keep fighting for an existence so awful, that they wouldn't miss anything if they were dead? "... is there anything more stupid that to be eager to go on carrying a burden which one would gladly throw away...?"(pg. 57)

Voltaire questions all these ideas in Candide and I found myself analyzing everything he said. Sometimes, things happen to us and there is nothing we can do to change it or make it better, yet we still hang on to the last strings of hope, even though we know it is no use. This is clearly pathetic in Voltaire's point of view, and thus he writes the whole passage of the old woman's tales with a strongly ironic voice, obviously claiming that she should just go ahead and kill herself. 

Past relationships, fights, losses, disagreements...

We hang on to them all as if they were needed in our lives, we hang on to every little miserable detail in the world and that is what Voltaire is protesting. It is also what I find makes life beautiful.

What would we be without our past to make us who we are? What would we have if those grudges, crushed dreams, doomed relationships, and losses weren't by our side?

We would have nothing, we would be no one. 

This part of the book, not only got me thinking about the way we hold on to life, but the way we hold on to the past. It reminded me (as weird as this may sound) of The Lion King and two of my all-time favorite characters: Timon and Pumba. 

"Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase!

Hakuna Matata! Ain't no passing craze!

It means no worries, for the rest of our days...

It's our problem free, philosophy..." (Timon and Pumba- The Lion King)

I have to admit it, that song still makes me happy every time I have a problem with my family or friends. I find this "philosophy" very interesting, but I also find that it should not be taken literally. As I mentioned before, we would be nothing without our past and therefore we should never forget it completely, we should however, stop living in it. 

Somehow we all have to move on, and that's why I disagree with Voltaire's view on the miseries of life. That’s why I so strongly disagree with suicide. I find it a cowardly act, an act in which a person just can’t own up to his past and thus decides to run away from it all. The past can make us smile, or cry, or even shake our fists in anger at the unfairness of it all. The past can be sad and it can be happy. The past can be many things but if there is something I truly believe in: it’s that we should never bail on life because of it.

"Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it: you can either run from it... or learn from it..." (Rafiki- The Lion King)