Can Covid-19 Help Us To Make The World A Better Place?
Are we ready for the lessons that are possible for us to learn from the Covid crisis?
What we still don’t know about Covid-19 after struggling with it for over six months, is how exactly it works, how much longer we will have to suffer the disruption to our lives or what the after effects will be. We are assaulted daily by contradictory information, some of which is scary in the extreme, some which brings relief. Most of us (at least in my vicinity) follow the instructions with military discipline almost unquestioningly. Wear a mask when you go out. Wash your hands frequently. Regardless of the ranting of anti-maskers, we are presumably better off for keeping to these guidelines and I for one, follow these rules assiduously. I sometimes wonder though, if I will ever get out of the habit of washing my hands every twenty minutes even after the Covid threat has blown over - presuming I survive it, that is.
Besides the confusion there are a few unpalatable truths that this mysterious virus induced sickness is bringing to light though, or perhaps you could say certain awkward discoveries about ourselves that Covid is forcing us to make. One of them is that over a period of time, the world over, we human beings seem to have forgotten what life is about. To live one has to know the meaning of freedom. One has to have experienced love and also to have experienced and accepted pain. It means to have grasped the nature of death and to accord it its place in life. What we are witnessing instead, is the way fear has paralyzed many of us into inaction and turned others into clucking hens desperately scratching around for a solution to a problem that we are barely able to grasp. By and large our behavior seems to be guided by fear - an overwhelming fear of pain and death - rather than by any logic or humane considerations.
It feels as if the age old knowledge of life and death, of endings and beginnings, of give and take, a part of our earlier cultural heritage, has been buried deep under a mountain of learned rubbish in the past decades if not past couple of centuries. This blanket of false comfort and security which we have chosen as our life support in the recent past has cost us dearly, perpetuating as it does, the psychology of fear which today dominates our thinking.
False security is born out of illusion and fear. Fear invariably brings control in its wake. The more we get used to being controlled, the more we find ourselves living in a state of anxiety rather than of freedom. We seem to believe that without the whip, the human species would run amuck. In fact we have become rather good at cultivating fear, as it is the engine that keeps the economy running, a large part of the world’s industry thriving as it does on our feelings of insecurity - fear of loneliness for example, of growing old, of being left out, fear of being a loser and so on, but we’ll leave that subject for another day.
The best safeguard against danger is not control but awareness
Contrary to popular assumptions, not to be afraid of death, to loosen the tentacles of fear and free the mind does not mean to live stupidly. It does not mean to throw caution to the winds or to ignore necessary precautions when faced by danger. In fact our best safeguard against danger is awareness. It is to be totally alert when necessary. One needs to be sensitive to the world around one, to be supported by a good dose of common sense, none of which seem to be much in evidence in today’s world.
To deal intelligently with the subject of life means to accept the reality of death. It means to develop a kind of friendship, a relationship with the world which surrounds us, with the universe itself out of which we have emerged, an understanding of nature, of each other and of ourselves.
Unfortunately lack of true awareness has only succeeded in our distorting the picture before us and reacting to this picture out of quite an irrational perspective. One of the fall-outs of undigested fear for example is anger and as we can see, in many parts of the world, far from being put to rest by the grave nature of our joint situation, anger has actually led to the rift deepening, between nations, between religions, between political parties, and finally in our own lives between the rich and poor, between the ones who live well and the ones who are not even able to satisfy their hunger each day.
Where I live in Mumbai, it has given housing co-ops the license to further segregate the rich and poor, by restricting the use of common recreational spaces to the residents while live-in staff are permitted the use of the car park to stroll around and enjoy their leisure hours in the evening. I ask myself, is this really a precautionary measure or is it a subtle way to legitimize the discrimination which already exists, in the name of social distancing? The pathological emphasis by a fraction of the “haves” on individual comfort and well-being at the cost of overall social well-being, has unwittingly turned us into a society of hard, unfeeling brutes, unmindful of the feelings and suffering of those outside our immediate sphere.
Would this curse (or blessing, depending on how you look at it) of Covid-19, have come upon us at all, if we had lived more wisely and in harmony with nature? Perhaps not. Who knows. If it had, surely the innate intelligence and wisdom which we have lost access to over the millennia would have helped us to deal differently with it.
Think about it. Wouldn’t a more sensitive and open attitude have equipped us to create a very different atmosphere to care for the victims of the virus attack? Death would have seemed a lot less frightening than it is today, when the “Corona sentence”, in addition to the fear of dying and of unpleasant side-effects, carries with it the even darker fear of not only dying in pain but in addition, of doing so in isolation and utter loneliness, completely separated from family members and friends. Who knows how far the energy of our combined love, caring and courage would have gone, to heal the effects of the disease?
But to get back to the fear: regardless of the actual effects of the disease, fear finally, does nothing to improve the situation. Far from solving the problem, fear and paranoia are only likely to hasten the end. Extreme steps to prevent the onslaught of the virus without the human touch and a corresponding move to deepen our bonds with each other, are likely to result in a counter-reaction, as we witness today, which means in rules being flouted and the situation worsening.
If instead of constantly flooding each other with dubious and contradictory information on all that Covid threatens us with, we could agree to be cautious while consciously keeping the paranoia under control, we might yet be able to reach out to each other through one of the most difficult phases that modern human beings have ever experienced. This is also where a new story could begin for all of us. A story based on kindness rather than on control, on generosity and sharing in place of greed and hoarding. A story that spoke of caring rather than one imbued with cruelty. A story which would ensure the freedom, health and happiness of future generations rather than one which perpetuated fear and control.
Are we ready for it? Are enough people open to examining what we are doing wrong so as to avoid mistakes in future while making a note of what we have been doing right, so as to continue with the moves that are helpful? Questions based on avoidance are likely to confuse and distance us from ourselves, from each other and the truth. Instead we need to pursue questions which will help us to face life and reality in its entirety, not just a part of it. Are we open to facing the kind of awkward questions that need to be asked, in order for genuine learning to take place? Are we open at all to the lessons that are possible for us to learn in this new situation?
