COVID-19: A harsh lesson...

...that offers us an opportunity to course correct!

Call me over-cautious, paranoid, blind believer; I truly think the lock-down request order is indeed going to be useful and therefore, we as a family, have kept ourselves within our house walls for as long as we could. We step out once a week, only to buy groceries, not too far away from our place and at the time of the day when the crowd is likely to be less. Whenever we go, the outside air seems to be so fresh, birds seem happier [not sure if it's just our dreams, we seem to witness some new birds], roads are mostly empty, no honking sound and everything around feels serene. Elsewhere, I heard from someone very reliable that dolphins have come close to the shore and they all seem to be absolutely thrilled to have been given the freedom.

And here we are having to surrender the freedom gifted to us, albeit temporarily as all of us like to believe. While we can complain as much as we want about the virus playing havoc in our lives, the flip side is to look at this as Nature's way of paying back. Man took Nature for a ride for so long, when the reverse happens, it hurts hard.

A good friend of mine had this message as a WhatsApp caption

                          

As technology advanced, the way we looked at the world around us changed along. Somewhere down the journey, we started taking traditionalism, which has a close relationship with Nature, for granted. We have let go off old practices which have served all of us with distinction. We wanted an easy way round for every little thing in life. The short term pleasures we have derived have come at the expense of losing attributes of long term importance - the most important loss of them all is, health. Not too far behind are the gifts of Nature.

Most of you would have watched the Hollywood movie "The Matrix" - which is universally acclaimed to be one of the best to have ever been made. There are so many classical scenes across the movie, but listening to one of those during the middle of this pandemic makes absolute sense. 

While we do not have to take the complete literal meaning of it and feel awful about ourselves, because it sounds brutal. However, the deep lying meaning carries a lot of truth. The number of things we do not recycle and the number of things we use only with the short term in mind are some of the primary reasons why Nature has taken a beating as much as it has. We can always take the easier route by saying "Change is the only constant", "Get adapted to changes", "If you are not improving, you are going backwards" etc. But if the change comes at a heavy price as stated earlier and can only act as a detriment to the planet, it is better to remain stagnant or even go backwards. Just like how we have only one life to live, we also have only one planet to live in - unless we prove there is life in Mars so that we can plan for its exploitation.

In a subsequent blog, I will like to talk about some of the ways by which we can align ourselves close to Nature. Those will be the stories of people who I know well, who are doing their best to stay traditional.

All of us have to develop a mindset that will direct us to understand all the hardships we have given to the environment that was so kindly blessed to us. While the Earth has shown an incredible amount of tolerance over the years, it could spell disaster soon if it is taken for granted anymore. This virus is one such instance to prove that the life we are living is pure fantasy and nothing else!