I sometimes think that I am living an alien life on an entirely different planet. How so? Well, planet Earth has been home to the most evolved species, Homo Sapiens for more than 50,000 years now and today, it is nothing like what it must have been back then. Well, I am not that old so I can’t exactly say what people in those times were like but what I know for sure from historical accounts and tremendous amounts of research conducted thereon that the earliest Homo Sapiens were “good” and held certain non-violable ethical standards. What was right in those ages might not be suited to the current day but I am not talking about peculiar behaviours but a certain kind of belongingness to a set of rules, a book of conduct, so to say. Now, let me jump ahead in time and write about what it was like when I was a young boy. People were still good and by all comparable standards did believe in ethical standards if not exactly a book of conduct. In comparison, what we have at hand today is completely unethical. We do not have standards to live by and hardly a few of us stick to religious paths. We are a generation of people who are too good at lying, deceit, corruption and completely submerged into debased standards. We do not have a value system, or if we do have one, we do not care about which way it goes.
Why I am writing all this, one may ask. Well, I believe in standards – good, honest, ethical standards and I am not the kind of a person who would keep his mouth shut while the world burns down in flames of jealousy, treachery and hate. I am quite honest and I believe in God. I attempt to stick to humanitarian and other ethical standards. A good lot of that has come from my parents who are the most gullible and honest people I have ever met. My parents have made it through their lives till now and I think they have done a pretty god job. Well, it was during my early years, like every other person, that I followed what my parents did. But then, when I was a full blown adult, I had choices, millions of them. I could have done away with the critical ones and my life would have come off pretty easy. By all standards, if you mean to live an honest life in this world at this period of time you have to be pretty tough for that, and pretty tough I mean. So, when you are straight honest, the unabated corruption, lies, deceit, counterfeiting and all else that is negative and surrounding and attacking you on all sides makes life a difficult journey. I am pretty disappointed with what all is happening today; quite depressed I may say.
No one seems to care about the other. Everyone is part of some kind of a rat race and to land on the top is the aimed target. What lies at the top that makes people go all heavy on the negativity and evil? Money, lots of it, power and an inflated ego. That is what it is all about. Now, people comprise regions and regions comprise countries and structurally when countries are out to slit each other’s throats, it means it is the people who are out to slit each other’s throats. Countries are not anything but geographically designated terrain; it is the people all the way.
So dear friends, it does get quite suffocating when everyone else around you is busy with deceit. They make it sound ever amazing. A government employee these days does not notice that he is committing a crime, a sin when he or she asks you for a bribe. There is no guilt involved at all. It has become a “moral” standard of sorts. I know so many people who have retired as government servants and are running around to get their life’s earnings out of the Provident Fund office. But no, the clerk sitting there cuts you a deal. “I will take ten percent of the crop”, the clerk says when you approach him. It is your life’s savings and why would you want to pay someone ten percent of it. Every hard earned penny matters, or does it? You have to bribe everyone. Even the private sector has got the knack of it now. Then there are scams all over the world, particularly India. These ministers and bureaucrats don’t even spare cattle feed or coffins. They want a share of it all, a share of your life.
At the societal level, things are no better. Neighbours do not care about each other and people prefer to build houses where you do not meet or see anyone. The world has turned isolated. All the people want to lives miserable lives (by my standards) inside their palatial houses watching the stupid television. Our kids are getting affected and imagine what they would grow into. But, why should we imagine; who has the time to imagine the future? We are all busy reaching out for the booty, and “why not”? We were born to plunder is all that comes to my mind. But I want all of us to behove on all that we are doing today and how hellish it could turn our children’s lives into. They would perhaps have to pay a fleshy bribe to breathe in a single gasp of fresh air.
