What roles do you play?

I have always loved elephants.

Only a few things keep me purely interested for a long amount of time. A lot of things move my heart but not many move my soul. But, since I was a kid, there is just something about them that has always kept me mesmerised and I still don't know why.

Together they travel in herds with their families and are very royal to their herds. When one family member dies, they don't leave the body to rot away to be ruthlessly eaten by vultures. No. They bury their dead by covering the deceased with branches and leaves and twigs. Some have been observed to find them shedding tears over their loved ones and return to the grave for months and years to come. 

"Hans Schomburgk, a famous African hunter and explorer, gives an example of the elephants burying their dead. Once his fellow had to kill an elephant who became dangerous. The body has been removed to avoid possible infection. A day later they observed that another elephant have brought its shoulder blade bone and put in the place where this elephant died. And since that time each day comes to the place where it killed him and stays there about two hours each day. They decided to check this and it got to be true: the elephant stayed about two hours and right where this tragedy took place"

Individually, they possess great intelligence, picking up skills taught by men remarkably well, and are able to show signs of great happiness and joy. I see innocence and dignity when I look at them and I see they play their part in life very well with responsibility. And it got me thinking about us as humans and how we play our part...

What roles do we take on from the moment we are born as individuals separated from our mothers' wombs to the very last breath we take? What roles define us in life? Do we play our roles well?

We are first the sons and daughters. We are young. We are curious. We take great pleasure in the little things like getting a toy to play with, being played with, running on a wide plane of grass and getting to feel that tingly sensation on your feet. We are passionate unknowingly and rebellious: we resist when we don't want to eat what our parents feed us with, we cry and shout when we don't get our way.

But still, we cannot stand on our own two feet. We need the support of our parents to guide us as we walk and talk. We need them to teach us so that we can distinguish what is right and wrong as we emerge and get more involved with other people and the world around us, so we don't make many mistakes that we may end up regretting that will cause us pain.

We are also sisters and brothers. The siblings we grow up with have a great potential to grow into life-long companions. Because they are our blood, the people who we feel we can genuinely reveal ourselves to first before we can reveal ourselves to the world. We fight with our siblings; we do many things to annoy them as they annoy us in return; we shout at our siblings for being inconsiderate, for being 'mean' and we sometimes ignore and choose to stay in isolation. But this is normal. 

How we grow up as individuals goes back to our family unit. When love is present in our family unit, we are in the safe nurturing cocoon. As we grow up, we take our family values with us. And as long as we choose to stay loyal, they will always be a part of our lives. They are the most important definition of our identity. 

We start becoming students and friends as we associate more with the society.

Teachers first define our growth as, aside from family, these people are the next set of adults who teach you something new. They teach us to revel in our knowledge, to realise our skills and to effectively use them and to set ourselves goals so we achieve. It is during our learning years that we begin to find out about what we enjoy, learning deeply about science, about the world, about religion... We learn because we have to and most times we simply hate it. But we also learn because we are curious again. And as the years go by we get closer to finding out exactly what our passions are. What we really love and believe in that makes us act with strength, courage and dignity. This is where we find out the second definition of our identity.

Friendships and how our friends contribute to our lives with their presence also gives a whole new meaning to our values and our ambitions and our ways of thinking. In return we give them a helping hand, we respect their goals and wishes so they too can fulfill their ambitions, or just be someone who understands them and act with love when we are all away from our families. But there comes a time when we realise not all friends are trustworthy; some friends may take advantage by seeing us by our assets, engaging in gossip or acting with ingenuity. This is when we learn to take care when we choose our friendships and realise that sometimes the best way is to part ways with those who do us more bad than good. 

In time, we become husbands or wives, our last definitive role.

Here, we meet the greatest friendship you will ever gain in your life. We identify ourselves as someone's beloved because it is here that we set a whole new set of rules and identity for our own emerging family. Here, we are fragile. Sometimes our role as a husband or a wife may end. Sometimes we may be lucky enough to find love that is as big as the love of a family to see us through to the rest of our lives. 

Do you play your roles well? What role has defined you most in your life?