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!!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Need reasons? I just have Love!!

Someone sang not so long ago… “Love me for a reason and let the reason be love” and I always felt that it was one of the easiest things to do. Wow… isn’t it? Love because you love! Isn’t that easy… I’d find it mighty difficult if I had to love someone only after I had convinced myself of the 100-odd reasons I’d need to know if I could love them or not. It is certainly easier to just go ahead and Love - without reasons & consequences.

One of my favorite lines goes like this “too many things in our lives are done without passion - let Love not be one of them” and just because I use Love & Passion in the same sentence doesn’t mean it is Love of a 'certain' kind only. It can be any love… between anyone, anything!

Why can’t we trust that it can exist – devoid of its negative trappings and existing in its most fundamental & beautiful form! Love that is not about receiving but one that is about giving. Why don’t we take Love to be an honest expression of care and warm outpouring of emotion? Why are we looking for reasons someone loves us before we begin to appreciate the love they have?

We live in strange times, so strange that every step could count as a bizarre paradox. We try with all our might to achieve a few things but conveniently forget to celebrate the success of those achievements. We cry our hearts out for someone to listen & care, yet when someone comes around we only have suspicion to greet that move. Why have we - as people & society, become so pessimistic and negative in thought. Our minds are closed to the possibility of love; our hearts no longer warm to finding selfless care.

We all know it, we all want it… we yearn for someone to love unconditionally… yet cannot believe that someone actually does! So contrived are our times that we cannot believe that love can exist for the sake of love alone. Yes, there has been an odd calamity here, an odd mistake there… but as species I wonder if such pessimism is warranted. Our lives are so in tuned as “ends justifying means” agents that in everything we look for a logical explanation. And if there comes none, our conclusions are grim to say the least.

The Bible says that we are all made in the image of God, and it also says that God is love… even my poor mathematics tells me that if a=b and b=c then a=c… by which I can assuredly conclude that each of us humans are capable of love because that is how God made us. Of a love that is selfless, honest and true. One that is devoid of a selfish motive… love that is because of love alone.

Sad, that we have now come to believe that we are incapable of such love! And even more saddening is that we have shut ourselves to even receive some of it!!

Is this the state of our poverty in our consciousness that we cannot accept “Love whose reason is Love Alone?” haven’t we been looking for it all along? Haven’t we been wishing that we find love that doesn’t restrict our horizons, that doesn’t want anything in return, that wants to give, that wants to express, that wants you to know you are special, that wants to just love… no more!!

I feel deeply disheartened that our pessimism and cynicism is so entrenched that now we do not want to Love this way anymore; we rather not believe that such love can exist than having to justify its existence. Our lives & times are all about justifying the myriad ends; Love has become a task which is measured for its 'justify-ability'… I can no longer love, just because I want to love, I need to give reasons and so many of them… sadly, the world that sang “Love me for a reason, and Let the reason be Love” has now settled for “Love me for a reason, else don’t bother to Love”

If you care to Love, you must be ready to explain – why, how, reasons, justifications, relations... and I find giving so much proof… as difficult as I did to prove mathematical theorems.

Glad I was awful at the theorems, for I’m no good at a ‘Hence Proved’ love either!

"For I loved as I could,
not as the world thought I should!
The Love I had, I never hid,
And there wasnt any wrong,
In all that I did!

I loved, not looking for a return,
I gave, never waiting for my turn!
'Cos my Love wasnt for any reason,
It was just an honest care & warmth,
And it stayed the same, each day, every season!!"