Everything between the maternity ward and the grave is a relationship. We call it existence but I wonder truly if it’s not just a consciousness of some kind, this gift we have been given to participate in our external world? Today, my thoughts go out to the ‘unpeople’. Those I’ve shared countless moments and times with, lived with and felt with. About one human being dies every second from hunger. If you don’t believe me, look it up. Then there’s all the other stuff. Consider all those ‘unpeople’ that aren’t so privileged to be able to rush down the local store and buy more than they can consume in a single day, let alone a single meal.
Just consider that the relationship we’re all of us in, is about love. Surely love must be the most rewarding feeling in the time we have here. Being kind to each other, not only to ourselves. Consider this time an opportunity to look at how we’re spending this time we call life. Perhaps consider that the end goal is not just to defeat a disease, which will eventually happen, but a once in a lifetime opportunity to ask ourselves some real questions about ourselves.
Privilege is when something doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matter to us personally. Perhaps this is our most urgent question? Is this the kind of world we want, is the kind of children we wish to raise? Egotistic and spoiled? Will we demand our leaders spend resources on helping people instead of killing people we have never seen or met? Will we accept that our humanity is most beautiful when most diverse – or will we kill those who do not agree with us and our way of life, our ideas, our Gods? The false dilemma of US vs THEM is even now being imposed between those who are privileged. Those who pride themselves by their flags seem to not care whether their neighbours fly the same colours. It’s just pretending because if those of us who identify themselves with a concept, really believed it, they wouldn’t be out harvesting food. Perhaps we should simply accept that most of us are selfish, self serving creatures with an ego, metaphorically the size of the planet we inhabit? Are we really so delusional we think we have some sort of privileged place in this scheme of life? If we do, this virus is not the real disease, it’s us. It’s what we have become. We don’t care about those who die every second but we are turning the entire world upside down because it’s now endangering those privileged. Those unpeople (as George Orwell described it so well) are still dying. Besides from a virus also from not eating. They don’t stand a chance. Perhaps those of us harvesting food should consider these questions, before saving ourselves to continue a glutinous and lonesome existence. Perhaps all of us should ask the question of whether we are truly alive or simply lost in a relationship of life that needs to be redefined, where we must not only profess but also act values and goals that are beyond monetary aspirations and entitled self-preservation? Perhaps simply, a life where we are not so obsessed with our own personal self but also care about those whose lives we cannot imagine. Perhaps we should consider that if we can be caged at home in fear of death, we can also stand together in courage against death. The will is there, I will never stop believing it is – but it requires courage to stand together – and demand not just that our leaders deal with our challenges – but we ourselves do so as well. And in doing so, our leaders will reflect who we are as people, all of us, unpeople included.
