The year for which every company made a 5 year plan and ended up laughing at it. The year when many of us had our best performances of our careers and had zero increment. We were probably fortunate. The year when most of us added a bunch of not-to-be-used-again skill like being barber, painter, carpenter ( leave aside being teacher, maid, cook, baby sitter) etc. etc. The year when there was a massive reflux of souls. The year deserves a lamented documentation.
But while I
started to reflect about how the pandemic has shaped us, a rush of thoughts
came – about us - civilization – climate change and how we need to be careful in our actions..
We are in
effect for about 65-70000 years now. We have survived ice ages and
tectonic shifts, forget just pandemics. But despite that, globally across Indus
valley/ Mesopotamia/ Egypt we probably have been able to unearth to a max of 7000 years in civilization through urban lifestyle and innovation. And in this
span of mankind, let’s assume we have achieved the peak in technological
advancements through space missions, communication and digital tech [although
most likely around 3000 BC there are suggestions of advanced warfare and cosmological studies] and innovation has accelerated at a tremendous
pace in the past 20 years. But so had it to be, as the world is at peace ‘mostly’
for few decades now. And I shudder to think what would have happened to the economy, if
there was no technology to support the lockdown.
Very few
other things have advanced at that pace positively - Media & Politics play Yin-Yang
with human mindset, and has suffered an irreparable damage in the last decade or
two. There was a time when media had the power to build the mindset of the
human population positively and fearlessly. There’s a lot more democracy allowed
on media these days which allows mass negative mindset prevail and intellect
subdued. It’s a shame we live in days of paid news, ridiculous reality TV and
soaps which makes me feel we live in middle ages. It’s a shame we haven’t been
able to use the years of peace positively to build ourselves more
intellectually and culturally. Entertainment has been a driving factor to keep mankind
together since ages. But sadly we don’t use social media in all positivity, and
that is the only negative impact of digital tech. Anger is probably a virtue
which gets its wings in a lazed environment and sports is a way to channelize that
energy in a positive way. I only imagine with all the time in the world, there
was more creative energy and bonding among the youth in the past
years. Also if only we respected the cost of creation. The level of trolling
and bad news peaked during lockdown. If the mindset was inclined the other way,
we could have been stronger emotionally and also got lot more value, out of the
time we saved. Also talking separately of politics, we should have used it to
reform at a much higher pace as the pandemic has taught us that being adaptable
is the key to survive. It’s essential that soon-to-be-redundant jobs like
middlemen, clerical etc. are reskilled for global advancement.
Coming to the next most important focus area of climate change and environment. How lovely it was to see the blue sky back again, the dolphins back on the shores, the mountain ranges visible again. It was mother earth playing 'Big Boss' on us. We clearly get back in return what we do to our animals and nature. It’s not hard to be creative to manage remote working and saving on peak traffic, fuel, time, realty cost and the environment. Although climate change is inevitable and natural phenomenon about every 40k years, but with human minds at work, there is a terrific job we can do to negate it.
Lastly, it’s important to diagnose the effect on India. There are theories stating that it was the Indus valley civilization(IVC) expanding and going west with migrations, and till about 1000 years back as well, Indians had rich merchant travels. IVC decline was merely for climate change and not Aryan invasion. Indians for a long time had the resources, creativity and courage to explore and it’s stated that the gold accumulated by Indians is still the largest globally (in Indian households) and India shared 32% of the world's GDP in pre-medieval era. Apart from capability(read innovation) and adaptability decline, was it a pandemic that resulted in a norm of forbidding to cross the seas with defined clean-up rituals post return (the infamous 'Kala-pani' in Hinduism)? It is an useful time to reflect about the mistakes in the past and how to be innovative in tackling the root causes. Also China has taught us that no matter how well woven the foreign exchanges are, we should have our own resources for everything starting from advanced tech to medicinal resources. It is indeed a great thing that there are some positive responses to Indian commerce and its back up again with positive sentiments. And am glad that the habit of hygiene is rebuilt during the last few months. If well entrenched, Indians will learn to take care of its cities and villages in a truly “Swachh” way.
Indians are
the people who probably knew a lot more than globally we know today on space
time. We knew of time being cyclical. We knew of big bang’s’, consciousness. We
probably knew of ‘gods’ who travelled on 'Viman's and lived on planets where time moves slowly and hence
divine years are three times slower than earth time. Climate change, Wars , Tectonic
shifts, Pandemics – there are enough reasons to hamper our progress which we
had made or are making now. Let’s not allow the human made ones slow us down.
Although we are meant to re-invent the wheel every Yuga, but there’s a lot more
that humans can do to make birth still lucrative to the souls.
And to that
statement, I think, love is the prime reason we take birth for. Let’s not make
our environment hostile. While we have made good progress on LGBTQ rights, let’s
not spoil it with anti-abortion laws and not doing anything about honor
killings and rape. It’s time we know it is all about the Host and not the Agents
of Life(if you know what I mean). I think we learnt that bit this year from mommy earth - Didn’t we?
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