“To live in a great idea means to treat the impossible as though it were possible. It is just the same with a strong character, and when an idea and a character meet, things arise which fill the world with wonder for thousands of years.”

― Goethe

Imagine a world where the Earth is free to break off from the Sun’s orbit and drift away into the infinite expanse of our Universe. Imagine a world where the Moon drifts away into the void of space, offsetting our planet’s perfect 23.5-degree tilt. Imagine a world where the day is devoid of light, confining us to the darkness of an eternal night. Luckily for us, all of this is only a figment of imagination. Otherwise, life would cease to exist, and even if it continued to live, such an existence would be living a nightmare — the stuff of science fiction. The truth of our lives is that we live in a world overflowing with beautiful colours which we seldom heed in our daily lives, the sweet chirping of birds, the gentle breeze, the fresh morning breath, the captivating sunrise, surreal sunset. Life, as we know, would not exist even in the form of microorganisms if the laws of nature would not govern all things in the Universe.

The design of the Universe is unambiguous. Newton’s law of gravity states that any particle of matter in the Universe attracts any other with force varying directly as the product of the masses and inversely as the square of the distance between them. Influenced by gravity, the particles of matter formed enormous objects, just like our Sun. The power of the Sun was substantial on the planets in our solar system; therefore, the captive planets revolve around it. Recognise how beautiful things came to pass due to this captivity. Without revolving around the Sun, there would have been no life on our planet. We are exceedingly fortunate than most of our neighbouring planets, for we fall in the goldilocks zone of our solar system. The sunlight in this region is perfect, neither too hot to fry things to a crisp nor too cold to put us to Cryosleep without equipment (an antifreeze liquid and a pump would still be required). In the same way, we need to confine ourselves to following an ideal in life — an ideal which can raise us from merely living to actualise the purpose of our lives. To elevate and bring meaning to our lives, passing beyond ourselves and transcending the ego.

In line with the harmony prevalent in nature as revealed in the designs of our Universe, I believe if you do not revolve around the axis of a bright Ideal, an ideal brimming with life, burning with passion, your life will circumambulate around the ideals chosen by your subconscious. The ideals of base desires, the competition for gains and the desire to acquire worldly possessions. So even if your goal, like Elon Musk, is to reach Mars, your base undoubtedly is Earth, our origin. Acquire an ideal as enduring as Earth, the only planet that hosts life in the duration of millions of light-years. Arise! Burn down the vain idols and establish in the realm of your existence an ideal shining like the Sun, constantly in motion. An ideal whose life represents struggle, hardships, resilience, resolve, persistence and victory. An ideal who invigorates the latent spirit within you to dream and rise beyond a petty existence of show-off and hoarding. Bow before an idea that sets you free from the shackles of vanity, duplicity and hypocrisy. In the beginning, all was fire, a searing blaze, a tumult in the Universe. That chaos led to the gardens you witness today around you. A fire in your inner self will not burn you down to ashes but resurrect you like a Pheonix from the ashes of mundane life. When a lump of carbon endures constant struggle and strife within itself, it becomes a Diamond. This principle of conflict and toil is evident everywhere you choose to look. The brick that does not maintain its integrity in the furnace is discarded as useless. Similarly, men who do not suffer and cope with hardships in life remain raw.

Life is made purposeful and worth living by the existence of Ideals. Ideals are to life what the Sun is to Earth; ideals are what Sagittarius A* (the supermassive black hole) is to the Milky Way galaxy, the overpowering force which binds unlike things together. Would there be life on Earth if it did not circumambulate around the Sun? There would be no stars in the Galaxy if the gravitational pull of supermassive black holes did not hold things together. There are greater forces at work beyond those of Black holes and Supernovae. This design manifested in nature speaks to us in mute eloquence of the significance of an ideal. In humans, life is very flexible; we can exist even without our adherence to Ideals, but our subconscious secretly fixes its gaze upon an ideal of its choice. Our thoughts are a witness to this reality. They turn recurringly towards our secret ideals. Ideals are a secret of life, for the force of ideals decides the course of all existing things, whether hidden or manifest. A worthy ideal is a man of strong character, a person whose struggles lay bare his inner self’s might. The Sun cannot hide its existence. After all, it was meant to shine, illuminating the darkness of the world and the lives of humanity. So, similarly, draw inspiration and strength from the example of an ideal.

“We live by forming ideals, We glow with the sunbeams of desire!”

― Iqbal