Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Six Billion, and Still lonely!!

Statistics tell us that we are over six billion people on the face of planet earth… a colossal mass of humanity by any stretch of the imagination. Yet more so than at any point in human history we are fighting suicides, divorces, wars, frictions, differences and isolation. It might sound odd… but hardly any of us manage a peaceful night of sleep given some or the other conflict that rages within us! After all, with so many people around, there is easily a chance you’d find complete peace somewhere, isn’t it?

A friend of mine recently quipped “one ‘wrong’ can wipe away a hundred ‘rights’”… though the statement sounded true, it also tasted bitter and disturbing. Yes, that’s how the world pans out no doubt… but just because it does, doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do! After all, how can the weight of 100 things be lesser than just 1? Why have we come to accept it? Why have we come to practice it?

The Bible says that when God created man… He said “it’s not good for a man to be alone”… now I know that it is an oft quoted line in Christian weddings but I trust God also meant more in a social way! He also meant that socially we were not meant to be species to live alone, live in isolation and live trying to find differences than finding common ground.

Yet today, sadly, we are more at odds with one another than we have ever been… the smallest of mistakes results in washing away years of good… the tinniest of non-compliance leads to a full-scale war! Whatever happened to the ethos of patience & long suffering! More and more it is becoming easier to find conflict than find peace, we seem to have now developed a natural instinct to fall apart than to have the desire to cohabit.

Why? I fail to comprehend… honestly and humbly…

I thought love was a universal need, I felt that we all wanted to be together! Yet from couples to families to societies to countries… and as per Avatar even the inter-terrestrial being cannot think of co-existing… conflict has become our need of the day, an intoxicant that we cannot live without! Some sadistic pleasures we have begun to derive out of being at odds with one another that we have easily forgotten the sweetness of togetherness!

God created one unified landmass for all of us to live in, yet we broke it into pieces, and haven’t stopped at that, we take pleasure in fighting over who lords over what? Wouldn’t it have been peaceful for each to in their own spheres - collaborate and support.

They say that when we share our happiness is doubled and our sadness subsides into fractions! How did we manage to forget this? And if we haven’t then why are our joys becoming meaningless in the face of conflict, and our worries rising in the times of joy? Need an example, here is one…

Which day does our country see the most security men on the streets? Yes of course, Independence Day… we celebrate Freedom by way of putting security checks, police forces, guards and guns… hello… did anyone forget that Freedom was about having none of those... wasn’t it about peace? The joy of our Freedom is robbed by the fear of a terrorist strike… our joy fritted away in the face of conflict! Our worries multiplied in a time we should have been joyous… you could dissect the reasons of terrorism at your leisure and pleasure, yet the bottom line is that we gave up peaceful co-existence sixty years ago… and we continue to pay for it!

Marriage vows said, that one took his spouse for better or for worse, it was meant to be a union unto death does them apart! Sadly, as long as things stayed in the ‘better-half’ (no pun intended :P )things appear alright, the slightest hint of ‘worse’ breaks all hell open! More than death doing people apart, the possibility of staying together becomes worse than death! How else do I explain factitious marital chords and ever increasing divorces!

So much for being a country of a billion Indians, hundreds each day find themselves lonely to the extent that they have just death to embrace as their final pillow! Where are friendships, courtships and companionships??? Why are so many of us lonely… in the maddening crowd of thousands, each of us is an island unto ourselves! Why?

The world is more concerned today about bonds in the financial world, while those in our personal lives are breaking up each moment! We might yet survive a financial recession, but what would be the stimulus when you are hit with a global emotional depression?

Think, for we are not too far from it!!

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