I’m not really a religious person. I never was. I visited temples, still visit them (mostly for their architecture and history), still do the necessary rituals (when needed), but I don’t actually pray to god.
I wouldn’t go as far as to call myself an atheist though. I’m at best agnostic — I don’t worry too much about the existence or non-existence of god. Or so I thought, until my father was hospitalised in late 2021 due to complications from COVID-19.
December 2021 showed me how desperate one can become in times of “real” adversity. In December 2021, there was no god I wouldn’t pray to, beg, or even bribe; no religion I wouldn’t convert to, just to make things alright.
That was real desperation for me. It only happens when you have absolutely no control over your fate whatsoever. You feel so powerless that you’re ready to do or believe in literally anything and everything.
After my father passed away about two weeks later, I had no spite against god either. I guess I was too numb to be angry at anybody. Later, as I started to get back to my senses, I started to realise something. Had the concept of god not been around, it would have been super hard to deal with this situation. I might have even gone mad.
Deep down I guess I knew that my prayers were going into the void. No one was really listening. Even if there was someone hearing me, they had no reason to listen to me in any case. But it did give me something to do. Even though it didn’t help in my father’s recovery, at least it gave me the illusion of effort. In fact, this futile effort of shouting into deaf ears was the only thing I could do in the face of the extreme adversity. Inaction would have been just too much torturous.
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