Slow poison

These days it's not a nightmare or full bladder that wakes me up at midnight but the wheezing, whimpering, tossing and turning of my three year old kid in the bed as she tries to get some sleep. The human lungs have not evolved enough to filter the levels of dust and poison in the air that we have generated to fuel our cancerous growth as a species.
       I can hear the struggle for breath in my child once every month  almost for a full week all night long  as she gets tired of breathing and sleeps. I fear what effect this enduring physical trauma during the sleep will have on shaping her psychology. Medicines don't help because they can't cure allergies. The anti allergens have more side effects than benefits.
       Early on some winter mornings one can see the air bleed as a thick orange brownish smog envelops your vision like cataract. I wonder what my choices are. Is it to submit to the destiny of slow poison laced life where every year of existence is taxed with some time taken off for our apathy and callousness as we defiled the earth with construction, industry and vehicles.
     Or should I escape this place, job, education to some secluded place where the effects of pollution and it's dread in  the society won't be apparent in my lifetime.
   One can't help but feel the pain that attachment breeds. Maybe this is all just part of a grand plan to make men reflect on themselves in the mirror of our dysfunctional relationship to  other people and nature. To see what a messy junkyard  have  we made of our beautiful planet and our lives by allowing ourselves to be insensitive and unconscious, focusing all our energies on things that don't really matter as our time on this earth comes to an end.
     We have cursed our progeny to a dreadful and unsustainable conditioning of the idea of growth and success. And unless  mankind unconditions itself humanity is doomed. The planet will certainly heal itself notwithstanding us, hope man does too.
       

Animal Instinct

I have seen wild animals hunt on TV. How they lock on to the weakest in the herd by lurking in the background. How they chase  the one they have singled out relentlessly. At last the prey gives up exasperated or is pushed into some corner that it can't escape from. That's when the predator attacks at the point the prey is most vulnerable at which usually happens to be the neck. At last the kill is made and the victorious beast feasts on it.

           I have also noticed monkeys mark their territory and proclaim to be the alpha in the herd by thumping their chests. We too are aggressive in groups and fight for dominion and superiority. If our views are snubbed upon it's the worst thing to come upon us.

          One would think humans would have evolved but most of us are essentially the same. We argue and fight for our views like wild animals that hunt. We would wait for the other person to slip and verbally attack them where it hurts the most. All that matters is sticking to our precious stands and defending our mistakes with hypocrisy and  convoluted logic. 

         I pondered on what it is that's amiss in humans that these patterns of behavior repeat over and over across a person's lifetime and through generations. There are two major things common across individuals having low emotional quotient that resort to such crude behavior:

1) Lack of empathy:

    Most people are so full of themselves that they fail to see where the other person is coming from. The art of switching off ones minds raging monologue and trying to step into another's shoes can resolve almost all conflicts.

2) Lack of humility: 

 One would think that experiences like that of a verbal conflict are registered in the brain and one learns from them. 

        But someone wise once said, to learn anything you need great humility. The same person also said that one who proclaims to be humble or enlightened is not so.

       Such individuals have a strong identification with their views which completely blocks any sensible learnings. Humility is the ability of keeping ones intellect aside and being able to listen to the other completely. 

Above all being able to witness everything impartially needs a deep sense of self awareness. Hope people meditated on their rage instead of 10 mins slots in their favorite escape pods in mornings and evenings.

Raising a child

We decided to catch-up after a few years on the occasion of me leaving the city to pursue my next job. Almost all my friends are parents and our children and the concern of raising them correctly is dear to our hearts. We discussed how some religions indoctrinate children as soon as they are born, how can we save our children from getting influenced by them and preserve our ancient culture. People talked about ideas and by the end of our  meeting it almost sounded like we devised  another form of indoctrination with a different content than what we were trying to save the children from.

      I wondered if we are programming computers by the language and logic of our choice or raising intelligent, curious, inquisitive youngsters who can make right choices on their own. For me, isolation is not a solution to bad influence, the ability to discriminate with intelligence is much more important. 

    There are just too many sources of influence in today's connected world and parents can't put a check on all of them without stunting the growth of a child. When children are too young to decide for themselves we need to build a trusting relationship where they feel empowered to communicate their dilemmas with parents. When they are mature enough they need to have the sense of right and wrong  built on the values we hold important like love and humanity. This can only be imbibed by example not by words or books.

            To be intelligent after all is to observe any problem or challenge without prejudice. And in the observation of the problem allow the solution to it to flower.