the experience of birth

and suddenly we come to exist. we awaken out of dreamless sleep. not softly but due to the unstoppable, shrill wake-up call of a biological clock (we will get used to it). within a blink of an eye our existence - a warm and weightless one - changes brutally as we are exposed to the contradiction of the ego and his world for the very first time. there is no warning. no mercy. and no choice. we are forced to be. we are literally pulled out of the warm shelter, which is all we can know until that moment. actual existence begins with a shock. we start naked, as depending, helpless, living beings; crying loudly, unable to digest or grasp what just has happened. we are exposed to this world, to its gravity and cruel harshness, after months of becoming consciousness. in this sense, birth is a process rather than an event. it is a process that culminates into an overwhelming stimulus satiation against which our fragile skin is suddenly to protect. life with all its sensational stimuli begins as a supreme surprise (nothing can be more unexpected later on), and who can imagine what a pain beyond all bearing it must have been - breathing this air, feeling room temperature, sensing smells, noise, and this blinding light for the very first time. we cry loud at birth in response to this forgotten but formative experience, far from a warm welcome to this world. but the world is not merely as it seems. there is a second impression that may give us hope - the affection of a mother to her child, our very first emotional experience. regardless whether motherly love cannot be understood at birth, at least it can be felt. this love may have been felt even before the shock, but it becomes meaningful only after our cruel exposure to reality. this becoming of meaningfulness is in accordance to a scheme that is essential to our existence - the need to experience pain until the value of comfort, or the absence of pain, can be understood. and life with its intellectual appeal is yet waiting for us... as our bodies and minds grow up we wander and look around: astounded, shocked, and we wonder what we are doing here, or where we came from, as if we had lost our memories...