WE'VE ALL GOT BOTH LIGHT AND DARK INSIDE US
















“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are,
far more than our abilities.” 
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets


“We've all got both light and dark inside us.
What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.” 
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix



I haven’t read a single Harry Potter book… I have only watched one – the very first – Harry Potter movie. Now, even if you think, I am dumb, it’s alright; but, here is my truth: I couldn’t understand, at all, what was going on there, when I tried to read the very first book!


Little kids have read all the books, I know… and, kids, young ones and adults have raved about the movies. Good for them, really. But, I have been clueless about a lot of Harry Potter stuff…


Anyway, whether J.K. Rowling’s famous tales are really so great is not the issue here. The books and movies, surely, had – have – some great substance in them. Else, they would not have become the kind of cult-fiction they have…


Therefore, I plead my ignorance, innocence and, above all, inabilities…


Having said and having confessed that much, here are two more confessions I wish to make  about Harry Potter boy and his creator, J.K. Rowling…


First: I have been hugely inspired by J.K. Rowling’s success story… The circumstances she was in just before her first book became a sensation… and, what happened to her life after that. Yes, that story is even stranger than her fictions; it is a story even more cloaked in magic and mystery than Harry boy’s story.


Second: I have, always, loved and felt inspired by little snippets from J. K. Rowling’s different Harry Potter books… I have found them to be very, very philosophical… very helpful in my daily life. They may be random quotes from the books… But, certainly, as Shakespeare gave us through various characters in his classics, here, J.K. Rowling’s, too, has given us some priceless wisdom through the characters in her own classics.


For example, today, when my mind was endlessly grappling with the issue of ‘choices’ we make in life – how our choices shape our destiny, how they determine our well-being, and, above all, how we cannot escape from the reality called ‘choices’ – yes, when my mind was burdened and confused, today, about this issue, like a Genie from the bottle, popped these two gems from Madam Rowling’s books…


“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” 
―  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets


“We've all got both light and dark inside us.
What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.” 
― Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix



A thousand thoughts – they say some 60,000 to 70,000 – pop up in our mind every day… That’s a cool 3,000 or so thoughts an hour… a little close to 50 a minute and one a second! Yes, I have only heard about it; and, yet, I believe, that mind, often, gets bogged down by thoughts… “Stop thinking” I am advised. But, Sir, it’s easier said than done. “Meditate,” I am advised. Yes, I do, Sir… But, then, thoughts still come back, and they still come back… Just as waves of the sea do… again and again and yet again. That reminds me of what Jonatan Maetensson said about our feelings…


“Feelings are much like waves; we can't stop them from coming…
but, we can choose which one to surf.” 


How true, and how simple!


Despite my years of reading, writing, teaching and preaching the so-called ‘Positive thoughts’, I am not free from the ‘Negative thoughts’… “We've all got both light and dark inside us,” I console myself through the Harry Potter message, “What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are.” 


And, “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” 


Though I haven’t understood a lot of Harry Potter stuff, I have clearly understood – and found it very valuable – the simple message from its random snippets. All that I do when I allow them to go into my heart is, I take it in this way:


“It is our choices, Gerry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” 



GERALD D’CUNHA

Pic.: Puzzlefactory.pl

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