LECTURE 22
OF THE USEFULNESS OF THE DIVIDE- AND-CONQUER ALGORITHM IN PARTITIONING SORROWS
Death, from time immemorial, has always been feared by the majority of men. The sound of the funeral bell alone does occasion fright in some. Many can’t afford to hear of the demise of a friend or a relative let alone contemplate over their own death.
Day-in day-out, relatives are lost and dear ones are hurled into the grave. In fact, there is not a single day that passes without death exterminating some existences. So with every passing day, we see families crying, mourning and agonizing over their departed ones. Some individuals even die through immense sorrows.
But why do we grieve over creatures to that extent? Why is the news of a departed brother so unbearable to many? Why do some even die trying to bear the weight of their loss? Though I have distinctively answered these questions and many more in previous lectures, I will add on by saying this; it is so because we usually forego the bidding of our contacts ‘daily farewell’ to the bidding of a ‘final farewell’.
Even my mom in bidding her mom, my grandmother, a ‘final farewell’ did nearly decimate her own existence with tears and anguish as that weight of pain was too much for her lean shoulders to carry. Yes she did love her mother, but instead of bidding her ‘daily farewells’, and thus breaking of any ‘unholy attachment’ with her as God so command His creation, she decided to bid her a ‘final farewell’ almost wrecking the poor clay.
What more can I say friends? If you so seek to arrive at moderate sorrows at the death of your loved ones, and not be strongly hit thereby, then you ought to bid them ‘daily farewells’ as they are yet alive. For there only will your ‘final farewell’ to them in death not frustrate your sense of calmness. If we will do this, it will be reckoned unto us that we have faithfully partitioned our sorrows and conquered them for HE WHO CONQUERED ALL.
Yes…the bidding of a ‘daily farewell’ is painful but not compared to that of a ‘final farewell’. The last will tear your emotions apart and at worst destroy you. You may try thinking on the following;
“How are you going to take it should you receive a call that, your beloved mother or father is caught up in a gas explosion in the city and is burnt into ashes thereby”
“How hard will it hit you should you hear that your little boy in playing in a river nearby has drown and died and that his remains are lying there at the river bank, with a huge crowd mourning over it?”
“Please do an introspection and tell me how you are going to take it should you see your wife and your only son lying dead in a pool of blood, in an accident scene you saw and drew near to sympathize?”
“How are you going to take it should you wake up one morning to see your wife lying lifeless beside you?”
“And again, tell me how you are going to take it should you lose your entire family to a motor accident or a flood in a day?”
Dear friends, should any of these befall you, I fear it will tear you apart. Therefore to mitigate the extent of your miseries should any of these befall you, I exhort that you give diligence to the contemplations of the death of your loved ones. For one sure way to bid them daily farewell is to meditate upon their death and to think on instruments wherewith their death may be procured. This will hurt you deeply, I mean deeply. Tears will pour down and legs will tremble but all for the better. Just an occasional dose of this bitter pill, and you will be biding them daily farewells. This daily bidding will consume the wrath of the final one.
What more can I say then than this very one – estimate your pain, divide them into bits, and you would conquer then all. Wherefore is the divide-and-conquer algorithm an efficient way of partitioning sorrows.
THOU THAT KNOW'ST FOR WHOM I MOURN
By Henry Vaughan
Thou that know'st for whom I mourn,
And why these tears appear,
That keep'st account till he return
Of all his dust left here;
As easily Thou might'st prevent
As now produce, these tears,
And add unto that day he went
A fair supply of years.
But 'twas my sin that forced Thy hand
To cull this primrose out,
That by Thy early choice forewarn'd
My soul might look about.
O what a vanity is Man!
How like the eye's quick wink
His cottage fails; whose narrow span
Begins e'en at the brink!
Nine months Thy hands are fashioning us,
And many years--alas!--
Ere we can lisp, or aught discuss
Concerning Thee, must pass;
Yet have I known Thy slightest things,
A feather, or a shell,
A stick, or rod, which some chance brings,
The best of us excel;--
Yea, I have known these shreds outlast
A fair compacted frame,
And for one twenty we have past
Almost outlive our name.
Yet had our pilgrimage been free,
And smooth without a thorn,
Pleasures had foil'd Eternity,
And tares had choked the corn.
Thus by the Cross Salvation runs;
Affliction is a mother,
Whose painful throes yield many sons,
Each fairer than the other.
A silent tear can pierce Thy throne,
When loud joys want a wing;
And sweeter airs stream from a groan,
Than any arted string.
Thus, LORD, I see my gain is great,
My loss but little to it,
Yet something more I must entreat,
And only Thou canst do it.
O let me--like him--know my end!
And be as glad to find it:
And whatsoe'er Thou shalt commend
Still let Thy servant mind it!
Then make my soul white as his own,
My faith as pure and steady,
And deck me, LORD with the same crown
That has crown'd him already!