Change is the law of nature.
Change is good.
Change is the only constant.
Right? Right?
Well, not so much in this case. Not when change is just another word for disaster. Climate change and the future of the world hangs in the balance, and this is a change we don’t want.
Personally speaking, I’ve never really been that fond of change. I get the whole ‘change being necessary’ thing, but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. I like it when things stay as they are, when routine is not so much boring as comfortable, when the days are not repetitive, but satisfying. I like it when I am home, surrounded by people I’ve known my whole life. I like familiarity, and I like constancy.
And I know that people will get bored if they’re stuck in a loop of the same day for eternity, but isn’t that such an exaggerated argument? There is a precious balance between constancy and complete upheaval of any kind of familiarity. I like that balance.
And yet, change is the law of nature. Change is what keeps everything going, growing, evolving. There is no life without change. There is no life in stagnation.
And yet, things are changing, and somehow, this change is different. Temperatures are rising, glaciers are melting, there’s a hole where there shouldn’t really be in the protective cover around our planet.
This is less like change and more like chances-of-recovery-being-low-to-none. This is a disaster.
Don’t we all just deserve a future. Don’t we deserve to have atleast the chance of creating circumstances
Change is the law of nature?
The thing with change is, it’s only a good thing if it’s natural. When the change is brought about by something that is not a part of nature, it’s more of a disaster.
The difference here is between ‘happens’ and ‘caused’. Change happens naturally. Change is caused by something else.
When it happens, it’s right. It’s what had to happen, in order for things to go smoothly. Like how a caterpillar grows into a butterfly. Or how species evolve, or how (gove more examples)
This is natural and if this change stops, then life as we know it will stop too, eventually. This change is what keeps the world spinning, keeps us moving with the flow of time.
This is flux. It is the natural state of the world. Everything is in continuous motion, evermoving, ever changing.
However, change is caused when we interfere in the order of things. This is when stuff starts to go a bit sideways. Like when people cut thousands of trees to build roads and infrastructure. Or when loads of biochemical waste is dumped annually into the oceans and other water bodies. Or when whole species become endangered because someone decided to go on a hunting spree, or tried to make money off of animal skins or teeth.
Or when people shoot bombs at innocent civilians, killing millions and cursing generations with radiation related disabilities.
These are the changes that are not the law of nature. Infact, these are what might just fall in the completely opposite lane.
So climate change? Big no.
I was a fairly angry teenager, like most other teenagers. I think it has something to do with stepping into a bright new world and finding out that the world isn’t so bright after all. It’s a disappointing phase, really, in some ways, when you realise that everything isn’t as easy as it seemed when you were a child.
It’s disappointing to see the damage and corruption and the pollution and all the little ways something so wrong with the world. All the ways people let their stupidity and their ignorance harm others. It’s disappointing, and more often than not, this disappointment converts itself into anger.
There is a childish sort of rage that bubbles up when you finally step into the world and find it lacking. When you find out that it is not fair, and that rather than trying to make it fair, people just warn and advice to become just as immoral.
The anger stems from the simple fact that you didn’t do this, and you’re going to suffer the consequences of someone else’s mistakes.
But isn’t that just what life is? A borrowing of bones, as Pablo Neruda said. A passing down of sins.
We are soo something because of our ancestors. History shapes the future. Past rearranges itself into the present. And the things that we didn’t do come to haunt us anyway. It’s another law of nature, perhaps. That everything is connected. Everything is resolved.
And yet, anger lies still, in young minds and restless souls that dare to dream of a better future.
So I was sometimes angry as a teen. I think anyone with some amount of common sense is, in this world. It is an anger inducing world.
But I’ve found that I’m gradually losing that anger. It’s fading into a dull, lifeless resignation. It’s being covered up by hopeless whatever’s and ‘what can we do anyway’s. Sometimes, I want the anger back. I want to feel as passionately as I did when I was 15, but I’ve found that growing up takes that away from you too.
As you grow, you learn to accept things as they are, and this is the most unfortunate fate of all. To just resign yourself to whatever comes next, not even bothering to try.
Some people hold on the anger, even though it harms them too, form the inside. Because how long can you hold a burning coal in your hand, even if it is to make a statement. After a while, you have to drop it.
But I think we need to regain some part of anger at one point. I think there’s a point in life when we’ve established a foundation, settled into some semblance of order and organisation, chosen a road for good. There’s a point when we have the opportunity to make a difference and I think we don’t really need to drop the anger. We just need to calm it down a bit, wait until the right time comes. And then we need to bring it back upto the surface.
That anger will help us move forward. It will help us to keep trying. It will make us dread the thought of giving up.
I think it’s the anger that will save us.
We Deserve a Future
The thing is, we all just want a chance. We want a chance and we deserve that chance to have the time and resources to build a life of our own choosing.
We deserve a future.
The thing is that actually the only thing any infant is promised with. The only thing any newborn deserves. The promise of a future. Nothing big, nothing too grand, just something to work on. A blank slate to write your life story on. We all deserve to have the potential of a life in front of us. That’s really the very least that can be given to anyone. A chance.
And yet the children today are born with asthma and respiratory disorders, in places that see more droughts than can be survived, in areas that flood more frequently than they would have imagined.
Today, children are born with diseases, they inherit a dying planet when they grow up, a responsibility to salvage what they never had any hand in destroying. Today, children are born angry.
Is it really such a big demand to ask for a future?
A healthy future. A future devoid of the looming threat of the next biological war or the next big nuclear attack. A future with clean air and drinkable water. A future of not dreading the future.
The Dichotomy of Stupid and Not-stupid
I’ve always found the dichotomy of good and evil to be rather exaggerated. After all, it’s not like people are either all good or all evil. We’re people, not one dimensional characters of a poorly written fantasy novel. We’re not good or evil. We’re good and evil.
People contain multitudes. And people contain potential. Every single one of us has the potential to either save a life or end it. There is no defining feature that sets philanthropists apart from murderers except for the fact that they chose to be what they are. A person can just as easily give everything up to charity as that same person can rob a bank.
People are not either good or evil. It’s not a coin toss. People have both characteristics that make them good and flaws that keep them human.
So I think that the dichotomy of good and evil is outdated.
The real dichotomy is the difference between the stupid and the not-stupid people.
People are either stupid, or they are not stupid. That’s the only real way I can think of to classify human beings. They have either got the brains , or they don’t. Even some psychologists have claimed that people are not inherently malicious. What is most often attributed to evil-ness and malicious behaviour is just ignorance or thoughtlessness or general stupidity (Hanlon’s Razor) It’s more common than you’d think. More times than not, the person who was rude to you in the school was probably just thinking something else and don’t even pay attention. Maybe the person who accidentally pushed you down on the ground was just getting late.
Stupid people do stupid things all the time, like burning down a forest because they wanted a smoke or something. Or like dumping tons of plastic waste into the nearby river because they didn’t want to deal with the hard method of disposal.
Most of these times, people are just stupid. But the things is, that being stupid is no excuse. And even stupidity and ignorance can go only so far before it becomes intentional. Then it’s malicious.
We are either ignorant, careless, and completely unaware, spiritually and intellectually speaking, or we are the exact opposite. We are either self aware, or we are not. That’s the real difference, and I like it better than the good vs evil one because this means that the only thing separating the two sides is knowledge. I might be ignorant, but it isn’t impossible for me to change that. Eventually, I will get there, as long as I keep trying.
You might be a complete idiot, but that’s not final, never set in stone. You can always overcome the shadows of societal conditioning and learn to pay attention. We are all a bit stupid, when we’re born, but the real feat is growing out of it. Some people do it right away. Some people take years, but they get there in the end. Some people need a bit of nudging, and some others need you to kick them in the back and give them some momentum.
But the important part is that it’s possible.
The Future In the Making
The temperatures of the earth are rising. It’s time that something similar happened to us too. It’s time we stop lazing around and actaully start to do something that can help bring about a difference. It’s been so long, years and decades of just waiting for things to go wrong. We wait for something to happen.
Despite all the proverbs about precautions being better than cure, we’re a species that focuses almost exclusively on curing rather than preventing. We wait for disaster to strike—we even cause the disaster, sometimes—and then we do the damage control. We burn down whole forests, accidentally or not, and then we spend months trying to put it out. We dump chemicals in rivers, and then we hold campaign to clean those rivers. The ones we polluted.
It’s becoming a species flaw. A fatal flaw.
Not everyone causes the damage. And yet, those who sit around doing nothing to stop all these things from happening are just as wrong.
So the temperatures are rising, and we need to rise too.
We need to stop standing around while some idiots ruin the world. We need to step in and take the reins.
It’s time to step into the storm and see the world for what it is and what it still can be.
People say that it’s never too late, but I think that everything has a saturation point. Even the world reaches a point beyond which it can’t be saved. There always comes a point when the damage becomes too severe ro reverse. We just need to come to out senses before that point comes.
And we need to start doing some work.
Related post: 11 ways to make the world a better place.
