Having All, But Feeling Deprived
Al-Risala (English), November 1988, p. 21
By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is named as the default author of the periodical; a piece that carries another writer’s byline is credited to that writer.
Having All, But Feeling Deprived
1988 11 November 21-22 Having All, But Feeling Deprived (723) It was said that he had “brought more joy and more laughter to more people than anyone who ever lived.” But, in his old age, he himself stopped smiling, for as his age increased, so did his infirmities. His sight, speech and hearing began to fall and he was confined to a wheelchair. While the Chaplin of the screen continued to be an object of entertainment to cinema audiences, the real Chaplin lay in bed, unable to work any longer. He died a few hours before his family’s traditional Christmas celebration was about to begin.
Charlie Chaplin, who used to play the part of a clown in films, was one of America’s first film-star millionaires, having earned huge amounts of money during his 52-year film career. Born in London in 1889, he worked in films in America, ultimately making his home in a villa on a 37-acre estate overlooking Lake Geneva in Switzerland. When he died in 1977, aged 88 he was worth £10 million. After early successes, he was showered with laurels, including a knighthood in 1975. In 1972, he made a triumphant return to Hollywood to receive a special Oscar for “The incalculable effect he had had in making motion pictures the art form of this century.”
There is no part of the globe where he has not been appreciated, and his 80 films are still being shown continuously. Even his first comedies of the 1914 -17 period are still exhibited commercially, not as museum pieces, but as modern entertainment – the only motion pictures of that period still to be so exhibited. It is estimated that 300 million people have seen each Chaplin comedy.
It was said that he had “brought more joy and more laughter to more people than anyone who ever lived.” But, in his old age, he himself stopped smiling, for as his age increased, so did his infirmities. His sight, speech and hearing began to fall and he was confined to a wheelchair. While the Chaplin of the screen continued to be an object of entertainment to cinema audiences, the real Chaplin lay in bed unable to work any longer. He died a few hours before his family’s traditional Christmas celebration was about to begin.
Dennis Gifford, one of Chaplin’s biographers, writes, ‘‘While he was working, he was creating something more than mere films; he was creating life as he wanted it to be. Life with laughter and love, dreams and hope, poverty and cruelty, but where there was always a happy ending, if nothing more than a walk down the road to tomorrow.”
Another commentator, writing after Chaplin’s death, says, “Chaplin’s life has been filled to the brim with what most lives consist of yearning after... wealth and fame and creative play and beautiful women... but he does not know how to enjoy any of the four.”
This was certainly true of his most intimate relationships, he married four times, but was perhaps only happy in his last marriage. Then, although extremely rich, he was still dogged by the fear that he might once again become as desperately poor as he had been in his childhood.
The story of Charlie Chaplin is the story of all men, in the sense that happiness eludes them whether, like Charlie, they have everything, but cannot enjoy it, or whether they are so lacking in resources that a sense of deprivation mars their entire existence. The truth is that in this world those who are showered with blessings can be just as unhappy as those who are deprived of them. But there are very few who can grasp this reality.
The futility of endlessly pursuing happiness is illustrated by the suicide note of a young American woman: “I wanted to find happiness and so I took to intoxicants. I even went to the extent of having free sex. But I did not find happiness anywhere. Now, frustrated, I end my life.”
Many liberated men and women stop at nothing in the quest for happiness. But they finally learn that happiness is not attainable in the way they have chosen to seek it. After leading lives of utter frustration, many feel driven to commit suicide in sheer desperation.
How ignorant are they who lay claim to knowledge. What failures are they who top the lists of the world’s most successful men.
