THE SOAR AND THE DWINDLE
-Dr. Geeta.S
I look out and I see this world. This world, that a tiny piece of particle has helped us suddenly create and preserve. This world, cloaking all its glory and grandeur, under the brunt of what we damaged; only infinitesimally, a remnant of what our ancestors left us…
This world, as it stands today, with the greener trees, the decreased carbon footprints, the happier and healthier ecosystem of animals, the reduced noise, the carefree chirp of the birds, the cleaner environment and water bodies, the reduced dangers of people and their devious minds, the decreased risk of climate collapse and so much more.
I am not a beaver, as Phoebe Buffet would say otherwise, but I can and will give its due appreciative diligence whence required.
The lockdown and quarantine has been marvellous. I have caught up on much needed rest, sleep, focus; an insight into my own feelings, turned my mind over, have analysed my life the last year, appreciated myself and my accomplishments and have time to study and work. All in all, a great win.
But the thing is, like rinse, repeat, recycle, re-do, reuse and all the other slogans you can name, the world is changing on its axis too. We are (hopefully) going to a time when we aren’t so lost into our tiny little worlds with our tiny little problems and don’t even notice or bother about the rest of the beings or the world peace, or combats against violence and terrorism. And, so, maybe this is the call of the cosmic, the universe, telling us, warning us, of the days to come, akin to the past, in a similar fashion, times when the world was not abhorrently selfish.
Suddenly, we care about spending all that time and effort into cooking, gardening, washing, cleaning, talking to long lost friends and relatives, reading novels, writing, and all those things that make us human and show our softer side, with ounces of compassionate humanity we all contain.
Suddenly, we worry about the health of the people we call family, we talk about standing tall in unity, bracing ourselves as one unit against the common enemy, we care about neighbours and acquaintances to an erring fault and help them out of our way, we cater to the general public so effortlessly when just a week ago, all we could do was make snide remarks and complain.
Suddenly, we use the time in constructive work, we relax and take a break from our zooming fast lives to focus on the important things, and prioritize and optimize our goals, ambitions, health; we finally have found that time to make lost on the small things, count our blessingsand pray, do what makes us happy, and make others smile too.
Who knew, uh? Who knew all that it would take to make things this simple, would be a particle? Something that isn’t even 0.1% of our constitutional makeup and yet for all its worth, despite the fatality, has become so ferocious, and begs mercy, that it has united mankind – a task even tradition and culture couldn’t manage successfully.
But the thing is, ebb and flow follows a re-run always. If we are on the high now, the low will follow. If winter is here, can summer be far along? And so will this phase that the world is in now. Because, no matter the bell shaped normalcy curve, the outliers always skew the plot.
And so, once the lockdown relinquishes, the bad will arrive in gory. Crime rates will escalate, markets will crash, corruption will rise, money will be on the black again, unemployment will hike, jobs will be squandered, food retail will go short, poverty, scarcity, dearth of resources will hug along, and everyone will be left fending for themselves and their family, selfishly, greedy for more to hoard, miserly to make up for lost days…and all that good, that sprouted in the last few months, would go back to ground zero, to square one, and we would have dissipated and destroyed all the wonder that was born, and all the lessons we learnt would be washed away, and all the happy we would have been a part of would be, in a nutshell – a static bubble just waiting to be popped…
If only. If only COVID-19 had gotten a memo to prolong its course and cure the outliers…if only. But, nature will rinse, recycle and retaliate…till next time.
