2.1 You Start Dying Slowly….. -by Pablo Neruda. (Explanation of the poem) 10th Standard, New syllabus,2018-19

You start dying slowly….. 

 

If you do not travel,

If you do not read,

If you do not listen to the sounds of life,

If you do not appreciate yourself.

You start dying slowly…..  

The Nobel Prize-winning poet, Pablo Neruda, wants us to live life fully and not negatively or idly. He tells the folk (people) to come out of their shells and travel the different places and experience new things. He further asks us to read.  He says so because life is so small and it is difficult to get all experiences in life. So to see and feel the unseen we must read something all the time. He asks us to listen to the sounds of life that is to listen and understand the moves of life. Listening to the sound of life may include listening to voices.listineing to noise, listening to music and listening to the music of nature. But we must learn to listen to the silence. One who understands the sound of the silence can conquer everything. In simple we must listen to ourselves from within. If we do not appreciate ourselves for our good deeds and fail to praise and encourage ourselves…………….then how can we get encouragement from others.

When we fail to do all the above things, negativity fills our life and we start losing hope for a happy life.

When you kill your self-esteem;

When you do not let others help you.

You start dying.

Colour, class, caste, religion, creed, any social strata, status or intellectuality difference can’t make anyone superior or inferior. But, as a human being, when we really think we are inferior to others. We do lose our self-respect and where we are not ready to respect ourselves how can we expect it from others. That is why we must not lose our self-esteem.

When we don’t mix in society and stop communicating with the people, we stop them coming near us. Naturally, we stop them from helping us. In other words, we ourselves close all doors of hope, remaining in gloomy loneliness.

These things make us negative and loneliness can make our life worse.

If you become a slave of your habits,

Walking every day on the same paths…..

If you do not change your routine,

If you do not wear different colours

Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.

You start dying slowly….

Habits (especially bad habits) are so easy to have in our lives and we easily become a slave of these habits, which in the end can harm us a lot. So we must recognize them in time and shoo them away. On the other hand, good habits are really difficult to follow in the beginning but once we have them, they are really great to help in moulding our personality as well as our future.

Poet asks us to change the old paths means to change the attitude of our inner self and see the things or find the things in a new dimension(way). It may be things related to life or carrier or any innovation. As a colourful butterfly gets mixed in nature, we must wear new colours and get mixed in society or the world around us. These colours may be the different emotions like joys and sorrows, loyalty and disloyalty, ups and downs, good and evil. We must acknowledge them all.

To get all these things we must talk to all to the known and to the unknown also, to explore life. And if we fail to do this our life would be boring to have no innovations.

If you avoid to feel passion

And their turbulent emotions;

Those which make your eyes glisten

And your heart beat fast.

You start dying slowly…….

All of us do have dreams and ambitions. We feel them and if we strive to get them. When one becomes successful after chasing the dreams, he knows how consistence efforts are needed and what flame of emotions (turbulent emotions)is required there in the mind. Which makes our heart beat fast and the shine in the eyes is worth remembering. The feeling of success or the taste of success is the best in the world.

When we avoid our emotions to try to do great things then our emotional life ends somewhere and we start dying mentally.

If you do not change your life

When you are not satisfied with your job,

Or with your love,

If you do not risk what is safe, for the uncertain,

If you do not go after a dream,

If you do not allow yourself,

At least once in your lifetime,

To run away from sensible advice……………..

If we do not change our life, our life becomes monotonous and boring. One must do the job of his or her liking only. Otherwise, it becomes a burden. So we must be very careful while choosing our carrier.

 ( For example-One very famous and praiseworthy actor in Marathi plays and movies, practised as Doctor till the age of 40, then he realized that his real love is acting and not in medicines. Then he started acting on the stage and in movies also and got praise from the world. But till the age of 40 years, he was dissatisfied as a doctor and the actor within him was restless. But all people do not dare to change their way, though they don’t love their job truly.)

Many of us do the work or the job which we really did not mean to do. But some of the things stop us making us dissatisfied from within.

We don’t want to take risks; we don’t want to come out of our comfort zone or our imaginary boundaries. We don’t challenge the talent within us at the proper time and in the span of life, we forget that we had some talent, once.

At least once in our lifetime, if we do not allow ourselves to chase our dreams. If we don’t allow ourselves to move from our so-called permanent place. Then you start dying slowly…..and surely…… not from outside but from inside you will die that is for sure.

 -Pablo Neruda