Blame it on the current socio-economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak: our circle of family, friends, relations, and co-workers have started behaving awkwardly. Possibly, some of us folks have become prone to coronavirus-induced post-pandemic blues. But sarcasm aside, the future is not what we thought it would be.
I realize it’s a crude comment to suggest, but correct me if I am wrong if and when we confront the following statement: We are evolving as a society, then how do you possibly respond to that? As a society, are humans evolving or devolving? Biologically we may have evolved into the species we are today, but socio-culturally, have we? Have a good look around at what we are doing to ourselves, and you will find your answer.
While human life is gradually regaining a semblance of new normality, we are back to doing what we do best: judging people - no doubt, it’s the aftereffects of our ‘national hobby horse’ kicking in, I am sure. Post Covid-19 crisis, we all are getting back to the old ways! Now, is this normal?
Covid Still Feels Nervously, Sweatily Close
Life is tough enough. I mean, it is not that we were not prone to pass judgments or passing comments before the pandemic situation. But understandably, the surge in mental (and physical) health fallout such as anxiety, depression, trauma, isolation is something out of the ordinary, unexpected.
Globally, the virus outbreak has dealt a savage hit to our collective sense of humanity. So much so that it is getting murkier at this point when the lower socio-economic strata are going through elevated levels of mental distress, thanks to the fear of losing jobs, anxiety, sadness, and miserable social and emotional wellbeing. Coping with prolonged indoor restrictions due to sudden Covid lockdowns, living alone, feelings of distress, social tension, and irritability were the major stress factors they faced during lockdown and post-lockdown. While they endured these difficulties every day, there was, unfortunately, next to zero help from private agencies or government establishments.
It is all fine if the response of the human body's antibody levels and T-cell provides longer-term sterilizing immunity from the Wuhan-supplied novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) infection. But human nature almost always never changes. Why not formulate jabs or inoculants that can eradicate the disease of judging people that encourage them to make judgments about others in their community? If there is, why not jab me with one first?
We all judge, don't we? Most people do it, and hardly do we check whether it is good or bad, right or wrong - judge we will, as we all are predisposed to this natural tendency.
It is true that people – notwithstanding their best intentions - cannot help delighting in the ego gratification of judging others regularly incorrectly. It seems to me, the very idea of making passing judgments (or passing comments) about people around us is to be wrong or almost always be wrong. As it were, we are all guilty of making judgments, and the present circumstance has made it more self-evident. At the risk of sounding too presumptuous, 'good judgments' are few and far between. Whereas wrong judgments, suspicions, assumptions, negative affirmations make you run blindly or get you fixated on auto-pilot, meaning suffering from blinkered thinking, our binary world-view continues unconsciously of the context or the situation or the circumstances involved therein. (And misunderstanding? Obscurantism? Indoctrination? Dogma? Selective Perception? My gosh! I am not going there! Get Nietzsche!)
I smile to myself, knowing that I am only adding my two cents philosophy to this age-old reality that is still so predominant in the 21st century as it has always been so previously. Therefore, in truth, we have always known ourselves as a judgmental society. Our sense of worth and the evaluations we make every day get influenced with the aid of other peoples’ social interactions with us and the social comparisons we make with others. At a level, this depiction makes great intuitive sense to me in understanding what judgment is, even as Covid still feels nervously close.
Since human civilization began, as far as baser human emotions go, nothing has changed much, has it? We are still so hungover on that aspect of the human tendency to judge others unmindfully, as were our ancestors. Especially in this part of the world, the situation is far crueller than what we are usually used to feeling. We are frequently not on the same page. That’s squalid if you ask me.
While understanding it in the social context of our globalized modern life today, the 21st-century human society should consciously evolve from such lame and soulless realities. Such irritants/realities cannot stand in good stead for the long run even if we continue to choose to remain unmindful of its uncharitable impact that puts us into inconvenient situations for the most part. Since every cloud has a silver lining, it’s interesting to see how people’s expectations start to become self-fulfilling prophecies that come dangerously close to contributing to their mind-set getting stigmatized with unchecked bias. Regardless, we all have a story to tell.
We think we know ourselves well, but studies show otherwise.
Physical or psychological diagnosis aside, we know that the most perpetuated forms of discrimination, racism, intolerance, stereotypes, preferential treatment, etc., continue to remain pervasive in all areas of public and private life. And we live a so-called modern life!
But hardly can anything be done about it unless we think that they are difficult to rid of or overcome wholly. Still, nothing has changed at all, hardly anything worth writing home about. We weigh many issues internally before actually mingling with people: Is s/he good-looking or unattractive? Rich or poor? Smart or not? These things continue to determine our belief systems by this attendant “social reality” of 21st-century modern life. Like it or not, our world is full of problems and always will be. No institution, organization, or authority can put these problems out of your way, they can help you to a certain extent though, but the responsibility or blame lies squarely with the society as a whole, or better still with each one of us: the teenager, the young adult, the adult, and the old.
That is why discrimination and intolerance still reign supreme in our ever-changing (ever-evolving?) society. For example, issues like ethical, legal, birth, and social origin that many families face still upset the apple cart of social harmony and order in the modern age. Often it makes me wonder, are we living a life of modernity? Are we modern in the true sense of the term? One does end up having reservations on such a cockeyed inference.
All the same, modern societies continually stress the concept of exceptionalism, individualism, and perfectionism. No one can escape from the day-by-day drudgery of the market economy. Only a chosen few who are fortunate enough to take the road less travelled manage to do so. (Only I pray TikTok never finds you).
But there’s more.
Back to the point: Keeping your rhythm in focus, I think you need to carry on, paying little mind to what you could have done or could not: Whether you “start afresh” from the point you thought you had lost your ebb and flow of day to day living, or if nothing else, value the prospect of living how you want to live. Assuming, however, that you settle on the latter, then living by adaptation, creativity, and spontaneity competencies alone will be the best-appointed judge of your daily activities and routines, which essentially seems a good proposition if you were to ask me.
[An aside: When I have nothing to do at home, apart from the task of earning my livelihood or ascending… no, falling off the corporate ladder actually, I willingly pursue a particular art form and turn myself into a sort of ‘artistic’ nomad. While I am at it being fooled or taken for a ride all the time, one of my friends generously labels me as a ‘home-grown think tank’. Good friends tend to rub off on each other. I don't have the foggiest idea. I mean, I can’t quite believe I am what I am, just like the Popeye the Sailor Man keeps reiterating when provoked: “I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam.” But for the time being, I sort of wind down, take a chill pill, talk to friends, take things as they come. Such lovely interludes (though brief in their wake) essentially smoothen my understanding of the world around me and my sense of home and hearth in it. Indulging in your artistry, whatever that may be, can keep you grounded, get you down to earth from your lofty sequestered world of self-beliefs and make-believes. It has that kind of power. And so, creating business empires… is not my thing. And running for the president: I know you are fucking joking.]
All The Frequent Troubles of Our Time
Come big change or perfect storm, finding ways to resist the world if it tries to steer you around could still be possible. Or whichever way it compels you to turn. Beware, you cannot complain later if you let it.
Exceptions abound the professional world, which (mostly) minds its own business if you do your own. That means if your poor graph does not curve up off the page, then it might be wiser to be led than lead. Additionally, the option to live to fight another day will still be there to take a shot. It doesn’t matter if the typical ball presently refuses to stay in your court. But with time, tide, and lady luck, you could gradually become capable of keeping up emotionally (and even spiritually) as you reap more opportunities, choices and also get to sense freedom anew going forward. As simple as ghee… err… pie!
That kind of predicament is called redundancy, which is essentially a nomadic presence between jobless growth and a growth-less job. Here’s some tomfoolery we would notice more often just about anywhere post-Covid-19:
- Socially distanced HR professionals will be back to offering plastic handshakes and smiling plastically;
- Managers will be back lugging freshly-cut bamboos to … (this is self-explanatory);
- Interns would turn into Lewinskys and Monicas into unsatisfied whistle-blowers!;
- MGNREGA’s tradition of uplifting poverty slightly above BPL (below poverty line) will interminably continue;
- Rich and wealthy would amuse themselves with characteristic gluttony, poor are dispensable and expendable;
- Full-blown consumption of OTTS: Netflix, Hotstar, Zee5, Amazon Prime, and what have you will go on digitally transforming our lives;
- Eating slowly to waste time;
- Generating tonnes and tonnes of One Time Passwords (OTPs) to access social media and tapping away to shop online with renewed vigour;
- Producing methane gas and garbage on an epic scale that is nothing short of unprecedented, staggering, and shocking beyond belief, nearing almost to the scale and level of a new national scandal;
- Analysis paralysis, and so on and so forth.
Last word
Modern life has become highly routinized; its monotony is nothing short of heartlessness. Often realities of life hurt that no one expects to face.
Times have changed dramatically and drastically. Submerged in its quicksand of wrangling twists and turns on the road to salvation, I try to own the outcomes, admit my mistakes, and try to live free, realizing that the world does not owe me anything. So why feel like a hopeless victim.
Even being preventatively socially distanced, masked up, and vaccinated, I know I’m going to find it hard to take up the challenge of returning to normal, to pre-Covid-19 routine as it were. With the ghost of the zoonotic disease still around, human life continues to be fraught with uncertainties and pratfalls. That’s too horrifying a reality to come to terms with, as I see it. Still, on a cautious note, we shouldn’t be hard upon ourselves even as we struggle to deal with this heinous sprawl of the deadly outbreak.
Critics may scoff and scoff they will. What of it? Let them. The times are a-changing, with the Coronavirus on its way out. So, enjoy life non-stop for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year - without burning fossil fuels or expanding your carbon footprint, that is. In the interim, eating well and exercising enough should be the new areas of focus, and how about we keep the habit up. Okeydokey?
Life is a phenomenon, and even though I can’t shake the nagging feeling that I am yesterday’s man, I feel gratefully safe and sound being at home in the world.
The future, whatever that implies, belongs to polished frauds and Earth devourers. So bring it on: the experience of the good, the bad, and, morally speaking, the ugly.
By Arindam Moulick
End of part 3 of 4
Disclaimer: The above write-up is simply an attempt at parodying modern life as we know it, presented here sincerely as well as straightforwardly.
Click here to read Part 2
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