United We Stand

We are molded into our shapes, into what we are, who we are, by everything and everybody that surrounds us. Right from the beginning, we have seen and copied most of the things that happened around us, done by our parents, or family members. Slowly, as we begin to unfurl, going out of the inner circle, into bigger environments, where we interact with people other than our family, we get exposed to different cultures, habits, ways of life and ideas. Just as we start picking up these new traits, we are again shaped up, nipping off the unnecessary extras from us, by our teachers. Little by little, we are trained to think in a way, act in a way, judge in a way. The good and bad are pre-decided. We are taught to follow by that, to live by that. With our growth, we chance upon newer surroundings, however the primitive ideas are set within us firmly.

It is very important for our survival, that we know how to learn as we continuously grow. We must stay updated, we must go along with the time, so we must pick up new skills and ways as we move forward in life. However, what we mostly ignore, or are unaware of is the fact that, it is equally important for us to know the process of unlearning what we have learnt. Time is changing, life is changing along with it. The values, culture and ways of life are in a continuous move, and to keep up with the pace, we cannot let ourselves be tied down to what had been initially installed in us. In the process of updating ourselves, we must also recycle the old ideas to bring in the new ones. Many of us have been brought up in conservative families, with strict ideas that oppose many of the general trends that we have around us today. Legitimate words like homophobia, xenophobia and many such others have been instilled in us, day by day, in the name of right and wrong, in the name of religion, in the name of unnaturalness.

Today, standing in 2020, if we cannot unlearn them, replacing them by kindness, compassion and empathy, then evolution loses its cause. We are slowly coming to terms with ideas like 'Age is just a number'. Even today, people are fighting on movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too. In all our advancement as an entire race, we should pause and think for a moment that where is the advancement, if we cannot accept everyone as our equal and own, even today. While we teach the kids that the world out there is big and bad, we are using no chance to make it any better on our part. The world is going from big and bad, to downright mean and worse, while we sit in our house, criticizing the external affairs.

A man, who doesn't abuse a girl verbally or physically is taken to be a hero, someone out of the world, an absolute miracle. We look in awe at girls who don't speak ill of other girls, or a young guy who goes out of his way to help an elderly person. If these basic acts of life elicit such awe from us, is it not time for us to sit back and think where we have collectively put ourselves down? Why a pandemic lock down makes the roads safe, because there are no people on them, and the domestic violence and abuse case numbers fly through the roof, because everyone of those people are in their houses? Why a girl feels safer with gay men, but not with straight ones? When we have collectively abandoned the idea of consent and brought out our primal instincts to the surface so blatantly? Today  scruples and honesty are mostly seen in books, and gallantry, at the most can be seen in commercial advertisements. If that is not shameful, what is?

The Rome wasn't built in a day, building a better world will take much longer than it took to build Rome. And the task is for all of us. We have our ideas, our prejudices, our pre-installed thought processes, but with a little bit of effort, they all can be rearranged. Human beings are intelligent, capable of doing a lot, able to love so much, yet there is so much hatred around us, so much darkness. If we try individually, our love, compassion and thoughtfulness will shine out like dots of lights. A dot here and a dot there cannot counter this vast darkness, but if we try, we can light up more dots, bring in more loving hearts, grow up better humans, with better understandings of the world. A sea of dots can easily wash over the darkness. Our world looks best when it is lit up.