A number of ideas exist, some which provide respite, howsoever brief, and others constantly put you under some disturbing thought process. Certainly, you do not choose over your thoughts and ideas because they essentially emanate from a particular set of circumstances. Everyone loves the sight of a smiling person, no blood poured on roads, no beggar and yes people reaching different milestones in their lives and of course, the social media being buffed with smiling faces. We humans have found our own respite in the thoughts where we do not have something adding up to the life and probably because they are a part of our larger lives which in turn are ingrained into our respective cultures. Perhaps this is the beautiful part of our lives that we have been able to identify arenas and reason to cheer. Say, if Indian cricket team wins a cricket match, our sudden idea of camaraderie comes into play, we stand cheering up as 'Indians' and take proud in every moment surrounding the event. Most of us have witnessed things reaching to the climax as soon as the national anthem is played. These are our areas of happiness and our moments of respite, momentary break from everything transpiring in our lives.
However, often a certain kind of tendency ends up developing that there is a constant running from the thoughts which are disturbing, for e.g., rising victims of terrorism or say more people dying because of cancer. We try to avoid these facts. There is an inherent problem with this because it is inextricably connected with the notion of concern, compassion and empathy towards a certain issue. The tendency is to be indifferent as long as we are not a part of the problem itself, while ignoring that at large everyone gets affected, directly or indirectly.
We select to feel bad and sympathize. If yesterday 39 people were killed in Iraq in a bombing, the same are nothing more than mere numbers and we attribute deaths in Syria or Iraq or any other such places to the volatility of the region and its tendency to violence. We have selected when to be responsive and when to be not!
Another tendency seeks to find respite in certain ideas such as less violence, less deaths, less loss of property, etc. I call this ignorance and indeed "ignorance is a bliss" for as long you keep yourself away from the touch of reality, things are pretty pretty a bliss. This ignorance in turn fuels insensitivity. Therefore, unless we see a tangible nexus to our lives getting affected, there is no idea of a shared grief and larger notion of humanity and forgetting that while I spent my night out with my friends eating out, roaming on the streets, some miles away (hundreds or thousands), the people from the same race were probably tortured last night, or was shot dead or raped or may be people of an entire family or community were extinguished. While I was rejoicing in my 'freedom', there was a much larger than life size fear engulfing individuals, families and communities with no end in the near sight. But we are at ease with our thoughts, because a bombing in Iraq didn't affect my sonorous sleep last night nor it would for times to come. Neither would a farmer suicide affect me as long as I would continue to receive food grains and properly cooked chapati.
We may turn our faces and rejoice into the fact that less people died in a bomb blast at some place the next day, but reality indeed is stranger than you can suppose. The insensitivity has been let a way in, but the idea of shared responsibility is put aside, because our 'concerns' are different and we will carry on normally with our own lives, with our own problems and our respites.
No comments:
Post a Comment