Few people would forget these immortal lines from Batman. Alfred says this when he feels Bruce is down on confidence. Of course through the first person to have used them was his father.
Now what does it really mean? Is it really cos "so that we can learn to pick ourselves up again"?
Mythology always says that good loses only to rise back like the phoenix to strike back. The Mahabharata, Ramayana, and even the tales or moral we have learnt tell how good initially falls, but is back on its foot like our Rocky to knockout evil. Is that really so?
Why is it that in all these tales of myth there is always a comeback?
Why can't good just win from the beginning?
I don't suppose I have ever come across any story where good, truth, God, if u want to call it that, wins from the very start.
Why is that so?
The answer is quite simple. We love melancholy. We adore heroes. But what we like more is watching our heroes being stripped of their greatness and brought to our level and trampled.
Nothing appeals to human nature more than suffering. Am not saying that man is vile. But our weakness creates a taste for sorrow.
Take for example Joan of Arc. She was the hero of the French until she was incarcerated. One account tells of how more people attended her burning than her victory and the subsequent coronation of the king.
Che Guevara was in less memories when alive compared the number of t-shirts one can see him on now.
So is it this sense that strove our storyteller to create such stories?
Perhaps God never loses. Perhaps Good always wins right from the start steamrolling the opposition akin to what England or Australia are dishing out. But that sorry tale is for another blog.
So what makes us believe that losing is the stepping stone to success? Why don't our tales say we must win from the beginning?
Can we? Well can here is less ability and more will.
Man can't win always. And he certainly should not give up. So if nothing these tales sow self belief. They say, 'even the great__________ fell. But he/she got up. He/she got up and became greater'.
So I say, tell stories of victory. Not defeat. But let us not forget that there is indeed more than just defeat.
I read somewhere discussing our cricket team's dismal performance, that we have lost the fighting spirit. The author went on to say as one of my friend says, that we always lose our opening matches, but claw back. Admirable indeed. But should we not admire the relentless Aussies or the clinical English? No question we must remember the phoenix act. For being a born loser I know of its importance. But that is exactly why I feel man should win, and win only. The word defeat must soon be defeated. Where better to start than with our moral tales?
So my very own answer to Alfred's statement- "So that we can teach others and ourselves that there is no down. There is only an up."
