Acceptance is a virtue

The battle of Nagaha.

The heat was a living thing. It stretched its hands into the insides of armour and made it feel like a furnace. The sweltering heat, like a tangible force, bore down on the soldiers, causing perspiration to drip into Tonaga’s eyes. Combined with the last assault wave they had to fend off. He was exhausted, his muscles ached, and his men were a quarter of their original strength. The attacks of the enemy, on the other hand, seemed to grow more reinvigorated with every wave. This was a losing battle.

Tonaga stared at the corpses which lay on the ground around them. Such a horrific turn of events, what a costly mistake. He should have sensed an ambush had been laid by the opposition forces; he should have paid heed. Too late for that now, he rushed into battle and now a more cunning enemy would make him pay dearly for his mistake. As a soldier he had frequently contemplated death and had come into its cold hands many a time, but never had it been so glaring and certain.

He looked back at the men in his company. Colleagues, who had turned friends and naturally, for men who have had to trust their lives to each other, had become family. The Amalath. A fraction of what they originally were. The majority had been annihilated by the initial assault wave. A combination of the most skillful and luckiest remained in the company. However, luck was not on their side anymore.

The Amalath. The elite force of the most hardened soldiers. A typical company of soldiers should not have survived the attacks of the enemy. Their persistence seemed only to enrage their enemies to attack more aggressively.

They would not make it out of this battle alive. He was scared. They were scared; the difference, however, was that he could not show it. Such was the burden of a leader; he had to show certainty in a time of doubt.

In the sweltering heat, while their bodies were weighed down by battle fatigue, he turned to look at his men. Their faces showed a variation of emotions. None showed fear; all showed tiredness. He was proud of them.

”Here we stand. Here we stand in the face of sure death. To tell you there is hope of survival is to lend you false hope. I have never been a man to deal in the trade of lies or deceit. Men, we will die today.”

As his calm words pierced the silence, the faces in front of him told him his words were not welcome.

He turned and bellowed once again, “We will die! But so will those at home, so will those who have never tasted the ecstasy of battle, so will the kings and so will their priests. The difference is instead of death choosing us, we have the privilege of choosing it. It has been an honour to fight among each and every one of you and it will be an honour to die with you. Let it be the most glorious fight you have fought as you have the privilege to know it is the last. Let it be the most glorious fight you have fought as we shall send as many of them with us as we can. We will fight, and for a matter we will die, but can one find a more honourable way to depart except in the pursuit of greatness?”

The heads of the Amalath nodded in agreement.

The familiar thud of the enemy’s drums began to beat as what Tonaga had come to recognise in the past five hours of exhaustive combat as the enemy’s battle cry. A harbinger of bloodshed.

The Amalath put their visors down. One said a prayer, another a joke. Ready for their final encounter. Fatigued but unshaken. Unbowed.

As the oncoming wave rode toward them, Tonaga put his visor down and screamed to his soldiers to hold their ground for what was to be the final time. He did this without fear. He did this without hesitation as he knew he surely was going to die. He did this as he embraced the cold hands of death. He did this with acceptance.

Virtue

Virtue. A moral standard of appealing quality.

To go through the struggle of life and not attain virtue must be man’s greatest loss. To go through the struggle of life and come out scarred yet uneducated. Such a tremendous loss. So I tread through this perilous journey (the burden of existence), and my soul undergoes a transformation, a transformation whose only gain is to serve as a precondition to my education.

Acceptance is a virtue. As the years go by and I reflect on my life, it is one I find a more compelling need for. Life is in flux. Flux is change. Change means acceptance, for acceptance is the only way to reconcile with change. If you refuse to accept, you might as well plunge into insanity. By extension of definitions, permit me to conclude that “Life is a journey of acceptance.”

How can one love self when one is not stripped bare to witness one’s flaws, doubts, strengths, insecurities, and every other peculiarity that makes one whole? How can one love self when one hasn’t accepted the reality of self? The truth of self? It is as though one sits to solve a problem and chooses to be intentionally ignorant of the variables. Futile.

When one has laid bare and has chosen to be accepted for who one is, all notions of performance and impression go out the window. One just is.

From acceptance stems many other great virtues, and to become accepting requires many great virtues. From acceptance comes patience. To give birth to acceptance, you require honesty. Acceptance serves as a sort of a bridge between more primitive virtues(honesty) and more demanding virtues(patience).

To sit and take events as they are and not as we so desperately want them to be. And we have to, in order to give ourselves the strength to forge on in the face of overwhelming odds. I admire a man who stands in the face of overwhelming odds. Unsure of success, yet he stands anyway. Not in defiance of his fate but in a stoic acceptance of it. With sure determination and surety in the idea of self. With the only words on his lips: “I shall preserve because I am. I shall emerge because I am. I shall succeed because I am.” Armed with the idea of self against the situation. Unperturbed by abstract concepts like winning or losing, but just to say here I stand in front of this challenge, accepting of myself, strengths, and limitations, and I shall face this to the best of my ability. The outcome might as well be a foregone conclusion for whatever it is I am already accepting of it. For I have accepted myself. To stand in the way of these odds and say I shall experience this, but I will not be made timid by it.

It is in these moments, whether in grand battles or in the quiet struggles of everyday life, that the courage to accept our reality, to draw upon our inner strength, and to forge forward regardless, defines who we are. That is a show of acceptance.

The final stand

Tonaga and the Amalath represent us, and the resources we have to traverse through life — with its challenges, and its ups and downs. And when something inevitably happens that is difficult for us to overcome, it is important we find that courage and strength to forge forward regardless. Tonaga and the Amalath stare at the oncoming wave. His muscles ached, and the ghost of fear lingered, but Tonaga raised his sword sky high. A final roar tore from his throat, a defiance against the encroaching darkness. He cut down two attackers, a brief, brutal dance of steel, before the world dissolved into a blinding flash of pain and the cold embrace of eternity claimed him.