DEFEAT
"if: "if you can dream- and not make dream your master; if you can think- and not make thoughts your aim; if you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same." ." fine lines they were from Rudyard Kipling.

I do not know why I chose to write about defeat, and why not about liberty, humanity or for that matter Che guevra. The expanses of human thought sometimes, eludes its very own creator.

A moment of thought for the word defeat, arises in me the question as to what exactly is defeat. Is defeat synonymous with failure? A bad day in the sea for a fisherman, a day without food for a beggar, a mark that cost a student the degree, a loss in the world cup final.. one could go on and on, citing various instances which bring forth the notion of failure. but are all these necessarily defeats. What exactly is defeat and why is the mind, naturally, so indifferent to defeat, if ever it was properly defined.

I have been very curious to critically understand "defeat". That perhaps is the only way to nurture a mind which is not necessarily biased, indifferent or for that matter, sullen even for a moment to an ocasion of defeat.

Sometimes, i wonder if ever there is a need to understand defeat, and if there is a need to be brooding over it. But for all those times i have failed, today i know that i haven't been defeated yet. Defeat for me, today, is death. It's the ultimate form of self denial, the crucification of the self, fall from ones own moral pedestal. Defeat is not dictated by your opponent, society, surroundings or any other variable. Failure might be dictated and defined by all the above, but defeat definitely is not.

Defeat for me is the culmination of ones creativity, ones zeal to fight and survive, ones ability to think firmly and act. It's the suppression of man's greatest ability- thought. It is the prayer at the altar of death. Defeat exists only in the minds of incapables, and there aren't any breed of incapables. Defeat is just a state of mind aggravated by the society's glorification of victory and thus defeat is just incorrigible nonsense.

When the mind refuses to give in, even when the body wants to; when ones will is not willing to let go, when everything seems dark and shattered; when one wants to go on, inspite of the odds; when a loss is just another probability; when mishaps do occur; when its a pleasure to have odds heavily stacked against you; when you believe that failure is never final; there is never a reason for defeat.

For all these scattered opinions about defeat, one last say, defeat is ultimately a personal idea. As Longfellow put it best, "Not in the clamour of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat."

DEFEAT IS NOTHING.