I see the news and I am so angry. I read the papers and it’s the same. I look around me and there it is once again. Man has become man’s worst enemy. Why does it no longer bring horror to my very soul to hear that a bomb blast has once again snuffed out so many innocent lives? Why is it so easy for me to hear about the Taliban’s atrocities on women and carry on with the inane routine of everyday life? I guess the person I am angry with is myself for accepting all this rather than doing something to make a difference.
Is it a defense mechanism to somewhere repress all these feelings and thoughts into the unconscious so that everyday life can be lived? I suppose I would succumb to schizophrenia if I let so many conflicting emotions rage equally through my mind. But there has to be a better solution. I thought I was doing something constructive when I joined Awaaz, when it rose to fight the Burmese militia. The only problem was that the movement soon turned into a series of newsletters that spend time “discussing” rather than “doing.” My inconspicuous inputs soon became inconsequential ones as I saw Myanmar continuing to be exactly as it was day after day. Not even one human being was affected. Disheartening, isn’t it?
Am I looking for someone to absolve me of my feelings of inadequacy when I write this? Maybe. Maybe in some way I am looking for someone to tell me that I do make a difference. That will mean I can continue not doing anything but without the guilt that there is today.
But what makes it so easy for people to hurt, torture, maim, kill? What do they say to themselves to justify massacre? Why is land, religion, material gains more valued than life? What do we hope to achieve by hoarding? For one thing, we are all mortal and will end up as ashes and dust, leaving behind all our acquisitions. For another, all we have is this planet. It isn’t as though once we conquer the Earth, we can go and live elsewhere with other people.
Our lives or even humankind is like a drop in a vast ocean of time and space. So what does it matter if we spend our measly 70-odd years of life believing that the Supreme Being should be called God or Allah or Bhagwan? How does it affect anyone else if I am a Bengali or an Australian? Why do I spend my precious time judging people because of their affiliations?
It is a human limitation that we need to categorize everything into neat little boxes of typical characteristics to make sense of the world around us. We make up our minds about something even before we give ourselves a chance to get to know it better because it belongs to a specific category. What will help us see individuality and uniqueness? What will assuage our biases? What will make us One World One People?
LOVE
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I think a lot of the frustration comes to us in moments where we see all the things that are wrong with the world and we find that we are not fixing them. The cause of the frustration is mostly the absence of our own analysis of our own self. No one can fix everything and everyone can fix something. Find what you can fix and start fixing it. Trust that the ones that you are not fixing as yet someone else is probably working on fixing it and maybe when the time comes you will start fixing that one too. In the moment – know what you are fixing right now and work on it.
Nice post Romila to describe what a lot of us experience…n think about
1) Negative emotions
2) What Can I do in these situations?
Negative emotions have a pattern and follow a cycle.. Breaking that cycle is a task in itself. All of us experience those cycles, but how many of us are willing to look for ways to break it. (And there are ways to do it)
Most importantly my philosophy to deal with things is –
‘ Do whatever I can, but not lose my peace of mind for what I couldn’t. Nothing is worth THAT:)
Conflicts existed during Krishna’s time and they exist now. To think we can find a solution to all world problems!!! Guess we can only do whatever is within our capacity, beginning wid our immediate surroundings:) All of us are already making a difference in our own special ways, and we need to focus on that to boost ourselves up…to take bigger steps..
Kindling basic human values – focusing on the service aspect in life can help in both the situations..
Interesting questions asked by Romila… and even more interesting comments left by Kalyani and Piyush. As per my observation, two things, on a very fundamental basis, impact the extent to which it becomes easy for a person to get used to a category of event.
1. Frequency of the event: See how traffic jams have become a part of our life
2. How close it is happening: For an urban indian, something happening in Eastern Africa will not matter as much as something happening in Mumbai. Further, something happeing in Mumbai will not matter as much as something happening to his own family.
The general human tendency is acting after damage has taken place. I think that is where the problem lies.
I understand how you’re feeling, Romila. It seems as if we have got desensitized to death and killing.
I agree with Ankit when he says that the proximity of the incident makes us feel more. When the twin towers in NY went down, I was shaken up. For me it was a symbol of entrepreneurship… of people having the freedom to create opportunity for others and be productive. I was saddened by the tragedy. However, when the Mumbai terrorist attack took place, I felt as if someone had come into my house, slapped the men, molested the women and gone back without anyone doing anything. I lay awake at night feeling angry and violated.
This is not the time to sit back. It is the time to act. That much I am sure of. But how? I have been pondering over this for a long time now.
Next step is to choose what you want to act on….the how will fall in place later