Excuse me if long stretches of inactivity and under-utilization have deprived my brain of rational thoughts...But a speech I heard recently jolted me out of complacence and brought forth a furious flood of thoughts and feelings I chose to suppress for long...
Similar to most jokes going around these days, I stopped doing and feeling many things ever since I started work as a software engineer...However, I am not here to complain about hikes or count the number of "like"s or any such stuff which we youngsters keep as our top priority these days...Because I have been doing that relentlessly for the past 2-3 years...Along with the job came the money and the 'power' of purchasing...This empowered me to do what I want, spend on what I liked, have all the fun possible...Countless movies, endless internet, several tours, loads of junk food, clothes, entertainment, and of course, the best of all, ample time to sleep and laze around and gain pounds...
Surely, a large majority of people I know have a similar lifestyle...Life is suddenly so much easier...And we tend to narrow our circles further and further...Finally even our broadest thoughts are comprised only of our self, immediate family and friends..and of course, our jobs, which made all this possible...I will here forth speak for myself, I am not going to generalize here, but I believe an average Indian youngster may be able to relate to what I say...
Simply speaking, I tend to forget, or rather, I choose to forget about the large majority of people around us, who are not family or friends...People outside the usual circles I interact with...People who are not in Facebook or on Skype, people who do not work in MNCs, people I am not related to by blood...People who are not salaried professionals....The jobless, the beggars, the extremely poor, the farmers, the orphans, the destitute women, the abandoned elders, the victims of heinous crimes, the dying soldiers...I am reminded of their existence when I see a video in Facebook regarding struggles of the poor in flooded Bangkok or pictures of the hungry skeleton-bodied children in Africa or articles about 3-year olds raped in India...I think of the soldiers on anniversaries of Kargil war or October 26....I cry and feel for the war heroes and the Holocaust victims, for the few hours during and after watching a Spielberg movie...
I am not dispassionate or indifferent person by nature...I do feel for such people, I feel miserable when I find out about the miseries people around me are suffering from...But then who likes to feel miserable?...This is precisely why I shut out such thoughts and images from my mind and try to have fun...Live life to the fullest as they say.....This is precisely where I began to fool myself into believing that I live in a wonderful world...But then, I had the privilege of choice...What about all those who have no options to choose from?..They continue to suffer..And how inhuman am I to not care!..I am one of Nero's guests....
The point I am trying to make is, as a privileged human being, I have the ability to choose whether I want to be human, machine or inhuman...And I am ashamed to say, I chose "machine"...I am a machine who becomes human for a short period, when I witness the horrifying pictures or stories, but returns to being a machine, because it is is 'easy' or 'comfortable'...I donate a little from the thousands I make, towards earthquake funds or cancer patients...But I do not have the mentality to visualize what they may be going through....And while I may not be "inhuman", its nothing to be proud of, because I am not "human" either..
Majority of my worries are for my health, my savings, my family, my job..I guess, that is reasonable for an average human being...I am not Mother Teresa or someone so great...But I remember, when I was in school, I was more empathetic towards the poor...At least, they came more often in my thoughts..I was just an ordinary school girl...I never worked in any NGO or helped in any such motions..But in my text books I read about the world...The freedom fighters in History and people below poverty line in Economics and fundamental rights in Civics and cultures in Geography and marvels of nature in Science...I think, my world as a child in a little town in India was broader than my world as a professional in an international place like Singapore...My thoughts then encompassed a larger spectrum of people and things than it does now...
Around me, I see people who are grumbling on and on about not being able to clear some level in AngryBirds...I know people who sacrifice sleep and stand in queue at iPhone stores for the latest model...I see people with 2-3 smart phones, an ordinary phone, a galaxy tab, an iPad, an e-book reader, personal laptop, work laptop, extra monitor, home PC...So many gadgets and all with almost the same purpose...I see people write critiques on different blends of coffee...I find myself debating about the finest food outlets in some corner of the city....
I wish to make clear that my intention is NOT ridicule or criticize any of these...These are what we all do as people...But my point is how I tend to restrict myself to only these...I wish to have some of that genuine compassion I had for the underprivileged, when I was a child...Paradoxically, at that age, I had no idea about the barbaric extent of human evil and crimes, I only knew of the British being unfair to India when they ruled us and I knew of the large percentage of people below poverty line...Oh, but I felt so much more fiercely about those issues...
With maturity and age, I have learnt and understood so much more of the evil element in human beings, but what upsets me now is maturity and age also brought in me a drastic change..The skill to tune my mind off disturbing thoughts , until I opt to let them surface...The image of an emaciated man being carried out of a concentration camp, the clips from Schindler's List of running old men, the striking message about hunger from The Pianist, the picture of a vulture waiting besides a baby starving to death...Disturbing and un-erasable as they may be from my mind, I choose to live my daily life as if I've never seen them...
I do not wish to be tormented by these images every second of my life, I do want to live a happy life....But I am ashamed I lived the last few years convincing myself that the world is a happy place...The world is a beautiful place, but lets not fool ourselves into believing its a happy place...There is misery...Donating some money offhand and than turning our nose up to keep the misery away from our line of sight doesn't really make us 'good' human beings...
I do not know if I can change myself so much and spend some real time helping out people...I do not know if I am self-less enough, yet, to donate a chunk of my earnings to the poor, when the fear of unemployment and economic recession lurks deeply in my heart...But I do wish I return to being the schoolgirl I was, and feel more genuinely for my fellow-beings...I do wish I become more human and less machine...I wish I spend more time from now on, to read and watch more about social issues, than on software engineer jokes...
Similar to most jokes going around these days, I stopped doing and feeling many things ever since I started work as a software engineer...However, I am not here to complain about hikes or count the number of "like"s or any such stuff which we youngsters keep as our top priority these days...Because I have been doing that relentlessly for the past 2-3 years...Along with the job came the money and the 'power' of purchasing...This empowered me to do what I want, spend on what I liked, have all the fun possible...Countless movies, endless internet, several tours, loads of junk food, clothes, entertainment, and of course, the best of all, ample time to sleep and laze around and gain pounds...
Surely, a large majority of people I know have a similar lifestyle...Life is suddenly so much easier...And we tend to narrow our circles further and further...Finally even our broadest thoughts are comprised only of our self, immediate family and friends..and of course, our jobs, which made all this possible...I will here forth speak for myself, I am not going to generalize here, but I believe an average Indian youngster may be able to relate to what I say...
Simply speaking, I tend to forget, or rather, I choose to forget about the large majority of people around us, who are not family or friends...People outside the usual circles I interact with...People who are not in Facebook or on Skype, people who do not work in MNCs, people I am not related to by blood...People who are not salaried professionals....The jobless, the beggars, the extremely poor, the farmers, the orphans, the destitute women, the abandoned elders, the victims of heinous crimes, the dying soldiers...I am reminded of their existence when I see a video in Facebook regarding struggles of the poor in flooded Bangkok or pictures of the hungry skeleton-bodied children in Africa or articles about 3-year olds raped in India...I think of the soldiers on anniversaries of Kargil war or October 26....I cry and feel for the war heroes and the Holocaust victims, for the few hours during and after watching a Spielberg movie...
I am not dispassionate or indifferent person by nature...I do feel for such people, I feel miserable when I find out about the miseries people around me are suffering from...But then who likes to feel miserable?...This is precisely why I shut out such thoughts and images from my mind and try to have fun...Live life to the fullest as they say.....This is precisely where I began to fool myself into believing that I live in a wonderful world...But then, I had the privilege of choice...What about all those who have no options to choose from?..They continue to suffer..And how inhuman am I to not care!..I am one of Nero's guests....
The point I am trying to make is, as a privileged human being, I have the ability to choose whether I want to be human, machine or inhuman...And I am ashamed to say, I chose "machine"...I am a machine who becomes human for a short period, when I witness the horrifying pictures or stories, but returns to being a machine, because it is is 'easy' or 'comfortable'...I donate a little from the thousands I make, towards earthquake funds or cancer patients...But I do not have the mentality to visualize what they may be going through....And while I may not be "inhuman", its nothing to be proud of, because I am not "human" either..
Majority of my worries are for my health, my savings, my family, my job..I guess, that is reasonable for an average human being...I am not Mother Teresa or someone so great...But I remember, when I was in school, I was more empathetic towards the poor...At least, they came more often in my thoughts..I was just an ordinary school girl...I never worked in any NGO or helped in any such motions..But in my text books I read about the world...The freedom fighters in History and people below poverty line in Economics and fundamental rights in Civics and cultures in Geography and marvels of nature in Science...I think, my world as a child in a little town in India was broader than my world as a professional in an international place like Singapore...My thoughts then encompassed a larger spectrum of people and things than it does now...
Around me, I see people who are grumbling on and on about not being able to clear some level in AngryBirds...I know people who sacrifice sleep and stand in queue at iPhone stores for the latest model...I see people with 2-3 smart phones, an ordinary phone, a galaxy tab, an iPad, an e-book reader, personal laptop, work laptop, extra monitor, home PC...So many gadgets and all with almost the same purpose...I see people write critiques on different blends of coffee...I find myself debating about the finest food outlets in some corner of the city....
I wish to make clear that my intention is NOT ridicule or criticize any of these...These are what we all do as people...But my point is how I tend to restrict myself to only these...I wish to have some of that genuine compassion I had for the underprivileged, when I was a child...Paradoxically, at that age, I had no idea about the barbaric extent of human evil and crimes, I only knew of the British being unfair to India when they ruled us and I knew of the large percentage of people below poverty line...Oh, but I felt so much more fiercely about those issues...
With maturity and age, I have learnt and understood so much more of the evil element in human beings, but what upsets me now is maturity and age also brought in me a drastic change..The skill to tune my mind off disturbing thoughts , until I opt to let them surface...The image of an emaciated man being carried out of a concentration camp, the clips from Schindler's List of running old men, the striking message about hunger from The Pianist, the picture of a vulture waiting besides a baby starving to death...Disturbing and un-erasable as they may be from my mind, I choose to live my daily life as if I've never seen them...
I do not wish to be tormented by these images every second of my life, I do want to live a happy life....But I am ashamed I lived the last few years convincing myself that the world is a happy place...The world is a beautiful place, but lets not fool ourselves into believing its a happy place...There is misery...Donating some money offhand and than turning our nose up to keep the misery away from our line of sight doesn't really make us 'good' human beings...
I do not know if I can change myself so much and spend some real time helping out people...I do not know if I am self-less enough, yet, to donate a chunk of my earnings to the poor, when the fear of unemployment and economic recession lurks deeply in my heart...But I do wish I return to being the schoolgirl I was, and feel more genuinely for my fellow-beings...I do wish I become more human and less machine...I wish I spend more time from now on, to read and watch more about social issues, than on software engineer jokes...
