What is the value of a day? One single day? Can a day be given any kind of meaningful value?

I've had many days I love to remember. Days that have been very valuable to me. Days spent with family and friends doing things we love to do. Or just talking. Or simply being together in peace and comfort. Or even time spent by myself doing something I like. Joyous days. How can you assign any value to such days? But then there are the days I'd like to forget. Days of failure. Days when I've lied to people I care about. Days when I've let good friends down. Days when my whole world seems to come crashing down around me. Such days don't seem very valuable at all. But they're part of my life. Living in this world, I have to accept the whole package. The good and the bad. It means I have to accept every day that comes, no matter what I may be facing.

There are certain people in India called “Rat Eaters”. They are the lowest caste in Hindu society, and they function as slaves for the land-owners. After hours of toil in the fields, the only compensation they get is the chance to glean whatever the fields have to offer. If they're lucky, they may find some rats. Otherwise, they steal what the rats have accumulated. In the case of one woman, she would search for rats' nests and steal the food they had stowed there. Usually a few grains of rice or such. Then she would bring her bounty back to where her family was and they would make soup with it.

What amazes me is that this woman had grown up in this environment, so incredibly painful and repressive, and yet she was still willing to bear children who would experience the same fate that she had. This completely astounds me. I would think that if I were in her position, the last thing I would want to do would be to bring more children into this kind of life where they would be lucky to reach the age of five, and if they did, their life would be a living hell. It brings cognitive dissonance to a new level!

On the one hand, you have a situation in which nobody wins. If you're born into the Rat Eater caste then that's where you stay. Your life will be filled with pain and suffering until you die. There's no way out, excluding some kind of miracle. On the other hand, I see a woman who chooses to be a mother. Granted, I don't know her society or its values, but there's one thing that is undeniable. She is a mother. And her greatest concern is for her children. Why else would she labor so long in the fields for so little pay? If she didn't love her children she could abandon them, or keep all the rats' findings for herself. But she doesn't. No, I believe this woman actually loves her children, which brings me back around to the original problem. Why would she do this to her children?

It doesn't make sense at all.

Unless-

Maybe she knows something that I don't. What if the value of a single day was actually incredibly more than what I could imagine? To be honest, this question doesn't work well from the Materialist point of view. If I believe that the material universe is all that there is and all that matters then what this woman has done is completely wrong. But if I am a true Materialist, then nothing matters anyway because once I die it's all over. QED. However, I am not a Materialist. My mind is open to things beyond this material world. I can accept the possibility that there may be other layers of reality beyond this one. It is possible that this life offers opportunities that are unique and powerful, even in the smallest of circumstances. And it is possible that the value of a day in this world is inconceivable in the context of the greater scheme of things. Just one single day. Just ask the Rat Eaters why they keep on living. They might not be able to tell you, but they keep on living anyway.

There must be a reason.

Category: General