By Rami
Abdo
I am ashamed and confused. How can
I elaborate over this duplicity eloquently? I am assuredly afflicted with a disease
that millions of others share and spread on a daily basis. Perhaps the very
fact of its wealthy abundance doubles as the contributing factor to its
acceptance. ‘Communis Error Facit Jus’
I always say. It is a muddled mixture of emotions all stirred together in this
cosmic pot that’s been fashioned together from an assortment of impositions and
factors placed upon us unwillingly. I won’t bother expanding on these any
further, goodness knows I’ve done that countless times already and by now I’m
quite certain I’m preaching to the proverbial choir. I would much rather switch
my attentions on the internal struggle that this disease invokes in us and how
we could deal with it alternatively.
We have all endured it at some
point or the other in our long prosperous lives. We might read an article
depicting alarming figures of some sickening statistic, such as the astronomical
number of people living in poverty or without homes. We might watch a segment
on TV showing blood stained children clutched desperately in the arms of their anguished
parents as their rubble strewn home looms in the background, all in the name of
oxymoronic wars crying for freedom or resource control. I would whisper that
these atrocities are terrible and perhaps even allow myself a moment of remorseful
self-reflection before hurriedly moving on to the next item on my vast agenda
of things that must be absolutely done today or else my feeling of inadequacy on
having wasted my precious time would surmount my insecurities and threaten to
drown me in sorrow. It is the me-generation
after all, and there are all these
shows that need catching up to. It is truly unfortunate that human beings are
dying of starvation only a few hundred miles away, but that’s not my problem is
it? Why should I have the weight of the world’s issues resting on my shoulders
while virtually 99.99% of the population lives on as I do, not giving a second
thought to the matter? How can it all be my fault? Who’s doing this sporadic
finger pointing anyway?
I duly confess that I am one of
these selfish masses. I have surrounded myself with the best of the best
luxuries that the 21st century can buy. I’m not talking sports cars
and beachfront property second homes here. I’m easy. A working toilet and the
internet are more than enough to sate my daily needs. I would sneer at the 1%
sitting atop their high and mighty pyramid and occasionally I would pretend to
shout in unison with my common man, especially when my working toilet is at
risk of ceasing to function. All in the name of the fight to save the planet...whenever
it’s convenient of course. However if my compassion for humanity is appealed to
at a more demanding level, I will conjure up my excuse, picked randomly out of my
pre-generated bag of goodies, and promptly move on with my life, albeit
allowing for a snappy guilt trip that leaves a nasty lump in my throat. Call me
content if you will. Call me lazy. Call me a self-centred egotistical vampire. It’s
all true. No matter how actively or passively I support the cause I could
always offer more;. I could sell all my belongings, move to Africa, and spend
the rest of my days helping others all while living a minimalistic existence in
a straw hut in the Savannah. Perhaps then they, whoever they are, will cease to
call me idle and instead attest to my altruism, stating that he has done his
part to help. The drop in the ocean becomes a slightly bigger drop.
The absolute truth of the matter
is that I have lost my faith in humanity. We boast of our advanced evolution
and our esteemed civilisation, yet we place more value in shreds of paper with
faces on them rather than our own lives. We consume and eradicate our Earth’s resources,
knowing full well our children’s children will suffer, yet we carry on as we
are, all in the name of the now. We
spend billions on wars and power plays when we could use that wealth to save
humanity from its own self-inflicted suffering. We can beat our fists upon it
as much as we like, but the sad fact is it’s too late. The amount of
collaboration and trust it would take for the powers that be to set aside their
greed, pool their vast recourses together, and begin that long journey ahead of
surmounting real change is now just a
far off pipe dream. Some continue to hope, and some fight every day of their
lives to see it come true, and I commend them on their perseverance, for it is
an honourable trait to have to desire a better world for their offspring. But I
can no longer see what they see. In my eyes humanity has made its choice. We have
set ourselves on an ever descending spiralling staircase that could only possibly
lead to our own doom. I’ve come to terms with it now. I’ve accepted that I am
one of the leeches; sucking dry from my environment and giving nothing back. Instead
of being consumed by guilt and wallowing in my own self-pity however, I choose another
road. It is a path inwards, into my own soul. There lies the responsibility for
only myself and the people I care about; a significant and carefully selected handful
of individuals who are the only ones permitted to judge me. They are my world.
A miniature little world set with my own standards, my own morals, and my own
goals. This makeshift world will come crashing down with the rest of them when
humanity finally presses the wrong button or when Mother Earth has had enough
of its parasitic freeloaders, but until this cataclysmic event takes place it
is still my world and I am proud of it. It may not boast of being 100% environmentally
friendly or possess any recyclable material, but at least I am the sole reason
for its successes and failures. I can only point the finger of blame onto
myself and suffer the consequences thereof. That guilt I can live with.
We can spend an entire lifetime
trying to change the outer world, or we can instead divert our focus on
ensuring the miniature one we were gifted with thrives to the fullest of our
capabilities. All it takes is a profoundly life-changing realisation for one to
accept the uncontainable vastness of their inevitable complacency and allow the
blame of their actions to shift from outwards to inwards. With one fell swoop
of the axe the fingers of culpability will twist around to our own chests, and
ultimately we will become better people for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment