Living with Fear

Current times are definitely “interesting”. Before finalizing the word “interesting”, I scratched my head, for some time, at the risk of losing more hair, to think of a better word to describe these events, but of no avail. Actually, I gave up quickly because I realized there is no need for me to decide whether these events are good or bad.

I am talking about the current atmosphere of terror, prevailing everywhere now-a-days. You pick up any newspaper and you will find half of it filled with terror stories across the world. Very recently, it has reached such proportions that one can’t even carry a drinking water bottle inside a commercial plane without thorough screening!!! Fear reigns supreme everywhere, whether it is Mumbai, Delhi, UP, Nepal, Sri Lanka, West Asian region, UK or US.

This is exactly what bothers me. Over the decades, we all have become used to of mad-rush-all-the-time kind of lifestyle. This has made all of us totally indifferent (yes apathetic) to our eco-system, because we are so focused on what we are doing. Our thinking is that I should focus on my work and let others focus on others’ work. Strict division of labour – the very corner-stone of a market based economy (a.k.a. capitalism). While it may have done wonders to the economy and the market, and might have generated lot of wealth and blah, blah, blah, I don’t think it has done any good to the social system, in which we all live and breathe. This mad rush has taken us far apart from each other resulting in rapidly declining respect and sympathy for each other. We tend to forget that we don’t live in an isolated cocoon, rather we are very much part of a system which has other constituents as well. The health of this multi-constituent system does not depend on the health of just one person, but of the collective. So, if we want to be healthy, we need the system to be healthy, which requires us to ensure that the collective is healthy. When it doesn’t happen, we end up living in eternal fear of catching a deadly infection, and taking all kind of precautions to protect ourselves.

The current events are nothing but a manifestation of our ever-growing apathy and indifference to our eco-system, due to which, certain portions of the collective got neglected and caught the infection of terrorism. If you believe in the age-old adage – what goes around comes around, it seems that the infection is coming back to bite us only. Right now, there is no alternative but to look for cure. But, once the system is cured (if it does happen), then what? Do we allow the system to go through the same deadly cycle of catching infection and then applying another cure? We all know that over a period of time, the bacteria becomes resistant to cures, so won’t it be wise to follow a wiser approach – prevention is better than cure?

Obviously, everything comes at a cost, and, in this case, the cost of ensuring that the system remains infection-free would, probably, be restricted individual growth. It is very obvious because it requires considerable time and effort to ensure that all the constituents of the system are in good health. It would demand lot of patience, hard work and personal sacrifice and in reuturn we would avoid living with fear.

Are we up for the game?