Contemplating duality

Though the river is vast, a little sip quenches your thirst. Though Earth has so much food, just a little bite satisfies your hunger. Accept a tiny bit of everything in life - that will bring you fulfillment.

Yes humans as they live and breathe are supposed to perpetrate their love and kindness to their brethren, yet the world is so tilted along its axis that it is not even funny. The rich are getting richer, the poor become poorer, and this imbalance is the one which pierces the heart of human nature at its very core.

You may be an atheist, a theist or a goddamn “I don’t give two fucks”, but everyone born on this ball of dirt has the same blood running through their veins, so why is there an insatiable hunger to have more than the next person. Why the burning greed for riches, it has always been human nature to destroy and pillage, strike the one in your way, but why not move around them, it may be the hard way, but it is the better way.

All throughout the world we see such contrasting things that it makes one retch seeing such atrocities committed by those who call themselves humans but are so far from the truth it is not even funny.

People of America are prosperous, but the neighboring countries still live under the shadow of dictators and tyrants, If you go further south we have the lawless South American continent with their drug cartels and various other crime rings.

In Colombia, one person was murdered every 10 minutes in 2005. In Mexico, armed gangs of rival drug smugglers have been fighting it out with one another, thus creating new hazards in rural areas. Crime is extremely high in all of the major cities in Brazil. Wealthy citizens have had to provide for their own security. In large parts of Rio de Janeiro, armed criminal gangs are said to be in control. The city of São Paulo is also very dangerous. Crime statistics were high in El Salvador, Guatemala and Venezuela during 1996. The police have not been able to handle the work load and the military have been called in to assist in these countries. There was a very distinct crime wave happening in Latin America. The city that currently topped the list of the world's most violent cities is San Pedro Sula in Honduras, leading various media sources to label it the "murder capital of the world."

Moving to the other side of the Atlantic we have Europe and Russia. They themselves are embroiled in their own issues with the Ukraine civil war and the checking of the Russian insurgence. Life in Ukraine is hell for those beleaguered civilians, the demands of the few at the top have always been the cornerstone for world politics, they may say that it is for the people, by the people and from the people, but if you do go and ask those people what they think about their position, a majority will always say that the movement doesn't concern them.

Going further south we have poor, poor Africa, and I mean it literally and figuratively, people from this part of the world suffer the most, the continent at this moment can be considered hell on earth. There are civil wars, famines and unnecessary cruelty heaped up on the local populace both by the government and the so called rebels, a child born there is trapped in a vicious cycle of hatred, vengeance and eventually a tragic death. A child should always have love heaped upon it, not hunger, hatred and death. But for those unfortunate souls to be born in these cursed lands their staple diet is hunger and deep uninterrupted rest is death.

The middle east is another parody of an excuse for us to look upon and laugh at our own stupidity, war waged upon the name of god, terrorism in the name of revolution, it has been the metaphoric place of residence for the war gods of all the pantheons, it has been the battleground for nearly three to four decades and by the winds of next decade I can only see it intensifying. The Syrian conflict has been growing in intensity and scope for more than two years, with the United Nations estimating more than 100,000 dead and millions displaced.

India and china always have been at each other’s throat on territory encroachment, Japan does not concern itself with such trivial matters like global terrorism when they have to get the next batch of work to finish in the time it takes to contemplate such inane thoughts.

So why go through all this trouble and for what greed, lust, envy, gluttony, pride, or wrath.

Love gives birth to sacrifice, which brings forth hatred and lets you know pain and this pain ignites the flame for vengeance.

Why do people do the things they do? What are the seeds of war?

Ideals, Religion, Freedom, Truth, Grudges, Love and Some just because they can, your reasons don’t matter at all, any trivial thing that motivates people to action will eventually breed war.

But as humans capable of such depravities, we are also capable of wondrous things so why don’t we do that instead. This is the question that every man and woman has to ask themselves, this is the breaking point of our society, if another war breaks out that is the end for us and our fragile selves.

Love more than you hate, give more than you hoard, laugh more than you sneer, live life the way you perceive yourself, you need not be a Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King, but be yourself .

                                                                     “BE HUMAN”

MAHESHWARAN M

30/9/2014

Chennai, India