- 60 people killed and 125 injured in a blomb bast in Iraq
- A UN document being circulated around diplomatic missions in Sri Lanka estimates that nearly 6,500 civilians have died and 14,000 have been injured.
- Since 1997, more than 25,000 farmers have committed suicide, many drinking the chemical that was supposed to make their crops more, not less, productive
and there are many such statistics that are reported in the news world over. Also, most of the time, the statistics, the numbers are played down. But if you really think about them as people and not merely as numbers, these headlines or news say a very sad story.
In these tragedies, in these senseless acts of mass murders, genocidies, a child looses it’s parents,a mother his son, a father her daughter, an old parent loosing their only support this is devastating for anyone who form these numbers, these statistics. Sometimes the people who get killed are fortunate, because who are left behind are left behind to remorse their loss for the rest of their lives.
But when do we start to look beyond these numbers and see the real people , the real lives that make up these numbers.
Listen to the song “Blowing in the wind” by Bob Dylan – a classic – the lyrics are what are important
I think most normal people (80%) and (80% of animals too) are not equipped to think and feel globally. Nature meant all creatures including humans to be “descrete automata” and operating very locally. Without modern technology (300 years) our “impact” reach even with all the metallurgy and domesticated animals, was very limited to may be a few hundred miles. So thinking and feeling capacities, scope and range has evolved biologically to be local. And being descrete entities our “pressing concerns” radiate out in concentric circles starting with self, immediate family and then your tribe or community (castes etc) and so on. Further more, higher animals such as humans and dolphins have evolved to form alliances and go to war (to get a bigger share of resources as well as build cohesion within their tribes) and all this is designed for survival of the species with maximum advantage. Every virus, bacterium and insect behaves thus in varying degrees.
So yes, when we read about a bomb blast in Iraq and 30 people died, we just tune it out. I am personally troubled by it when I don’t react to such news (hence all the mumbo jumbo explanation above to ease my guilt
).
But yes, we have to evolve to be able to think globally because now our actions (individually) can impact the globe. How we can accelerate the evolution, I have no clue.
Lets start with the song Blowing in the wind …
Comment by Subbarao Seethamsetty — May 30, 2009 @ 4:50 pm |