Cycles in A Lifetime

Even one life time consists of cycles. At certain stations in our short life, each and everyone of us passes through a stage. Every stage will determine the next course of cycle of each individuals, while each individuals, with his/her own capacities, will seal the fate of the stage itself.There is a process of born and reborn constantly. We shed our skins in each stage, mostly mental skins, to move on to the next stage in life. We hope that with the passings of stages, we will move on to become closer to reach an understanding of the the very meaning of existence.

Rare are the occasion of those who actually gain an understanding, as proven by history of this world. If we gather up all the saints, pious people or even genius of this world from now to the earliest recorded history of humans, I would say the ratio is at least in the range of 1:1,000,000 (this is a purely made number, though I suspect the ratio ismuch higher than this). Most of us, the "ordinary people" seem to be bound to the vicious cycle of virtuous-debauchery, to some degrees.

Statistically, it is quite frustrating to be in this position. Are there hope for us?I do believe however, that these cycles are not in vain, only if this one condition is followed; that we never stop trying to obtain the understanding, in whichever way we could, to be able to reach it. Failure to even try would mean that we will continue the cycles without a chance of breaking out of it. Failure means we become zombies, living but not alive.

Observation from reading Siddharta, by Herman Hesse