Crisis of Identity

Sometime last year, in the early days I wrote this. This was a time when Covid was still somewhere far. We were only hearing about it as something happening in China. Today, it has annihilated the world.

For once I thought of not putting this post as something being irrelevant today. But just for the sake of perspective, sometime between January 2020 to March 2020 everything else took a back seat because life came to the forefront. It was almost as if there was so much humdrum, so many differing sounds, so many differing voices, that the universe decided to shake it up and bring to the forefront that which matters - the only thing that matters - the breath of life.

Read to see how far some of the things mentioned early on seem to be.
Image Credit: Faithgateway.com

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So much seems to have happened. At one level life is going on like before and at another level everything seems to be on fire. Just the other day there was talk about how the bush fires have destroyed half billion of the wild life population in Australia. Thus after Australia was one of the first countries to boycott climate talks. These numbers are unimaginable. One only ever thought of these numbers as very rich people and very rich companies having so much money to invest. But lives lost?!!! Its mind boggling.

While we were talking about this, we realised, on the other end, USA had waged a war on Iran. The middle-east was burning. An attempt to blow up American establishments in Iraq, Iran ends up blowing up an airplane with 170 passengers. All gone. UK wants immigrants out. USA wants immigrants out. India wants immigrants out. Russia and China are so quiet amidst all this humdrum that one wonders what is really going on. 

There seems to be a sudden crisis of identity and the rise of personality driven politics playing on this crisis. In my opinion, there is latent insecurity which is being fanned by ambitious and predatory politicians. Power play is at an all time high. In the name of identity economies are being taken back several steps globally. There is a slow down not just in India but world over. It just seems that the world is hurtling towards destruction. And where humans are not making a mess now, there past actions are finally catching up with them. Basically the world is on fire. 

And then amidst all this din, there will be voices. Small ones. But relevant. Greta Thurnberg. People working for refugees in USA. The students in India. The students in Hong Kong. The Elders in Iran - All clamouring for humanity against regimes. These voices give you hope.

These voices make you think about the world - the one which we are living in and one which we want to leave behind. It makes you think of things beyond yourself. It makes you think of what is it that you really want out of life - Humanity or Power Play. What is the legacy we leave behind to our children -  that of Love or that of Hatred? 

As humans we will always strive. We are credited as being the thinking species. At some level human beings have developed so much that they have out thought everything there is on this planet. The reason why we are talking so much extra-terrestrial these days.. talking of Mars, talking of space travel, talking of setting up colonies in space, talking of solar systems conducive to life... We seem to out-think life as a whole and hence thinking of life beyond. I wish people would see setting the benevolence of life on Earth as a challenge and work on restoring it. If competition feeds us, then its all here in the now. Lets work on it. 

I feel for all the children in this world and the world we are leaving behind for them. We have definitely failed them. Now we will ask them to make a world for themselves worth living because we did not. We are leaving behind a huge burden on their shoulders and I wonder if we are even doing anything to prepare them. I wish that more Gretas of this world rise to take their future in their own hands. Let there be an uprising. Let there be a movement of the young and let all of us at least stand up for them and behind them when they fight to make this world better for themselves. After all the mess, that is the least we can do for them.

It is now going to be their world!