Sometimes, when I open an article telling me about someone’s day, a piece of news about an attack during a concert, or when I see people around me so caught up in their own bubble that they refuse to acknowledge the existence of a greater civilisation around them, I just stop to wonder how we reached this place. How did we become so engrossed in our own individuality that we just cannot come to terms with the fact that there’s a world outside our beloved ‘I’s?
In life we’re always completely lost. Lost in the deluge of goals and marks but amidst this mess we forget who we really are.
We call a place “paradise on earth” so now I am beginning to think that what paradise means is quite the contrary to what in my head I’d seen. It’s not a place filled with music, melody, mirth, and laughter but a place where an action too common is slaughter. A place where people hide inside their homes, and pretty faces are washed white with fear. A place where the last sounds a child hears before going to sleep are not sweet lullabies but the cacophony of gunshots and cries of people being killed alive.
We tell a boy he cannot cry, he cannot apply makeup, he cannot like everything pink, he cannot dance, he cannot sing because what’s right for him, for us is the wrong thing. We tell a girl not to go out late. We tell her no tattoos, no short hair, not this dress; we tell her to let the boy have all the says in her life’s ride. We tell her, “look on the bright side, he might let you have a say outside”. We’ll tell that person they can’t call themselves queer because if they do so, their respect from society will disappear. We have to live by the rules laid down for us and if we deter, oh boy we’re screwed. We tell these young minds, the future leaders, that they’ll live with these shackles that restrain them because being different means we are no good.
We sit in our luxurious cars and hear a little tap on our window. We turn to see an innocent face with arms wide begging us for a little act of kindness. With a merciless look, we turn a different way while that worthless little note we possess is fluttering away.
We use the epitome of love to fulfil all our desires. To become all that we had aspired to and when it’s our turn to hold their hand, we’ll walk away with a cold look and an even colder heart.
All of us want to be 1984’s Mr Big, brainwash everyone so that they bow down and agree to the fact that we wear the crown. To everyone with that school of thought, I just want to say that by all means go ahead. Be that person, be on the top of your game and get that large house, money, and fame but what good will that do us ultimately. One day we’ll see blood on our window pane. Blood which will wash everything in red and the world we’ll see will be a world we dread. We’ll see it drowning in a sea of competition, fighting over territory, power and drowning everything in their ambition. Amidst the strife of emerging the winner we’ll see people displaced and lost. As competition, rivalries, depression, distance, and misery increase, relations will be forgotten and the doors of heart will slowly close to all. We’ll see what I call the actual apocalypse – not taking lives but demolishing souls leaving emotionless dead robots in the process.
Slowly, as I stopped and looked at people’s lives, I felt what’s called gratitude. When I saw someone extend a helping hand I understood what’s called love. When an act of mine has brought a smile on someone else’s face I’ve felt what’s called happiness. These things make up that spark in our heart. A spark called humanity which is slowly dying. It’s the light we emit so let it shine. Let it penetrate into the darkest of hearts. The day we save this spark and understand what it truly means we’ll find out who we really are: not teachers, not doctors, not lawyers but simple happy human beings lying at the core of humanity.