Tag: empathy

Live and Let Die!

yin-yang

 

It was cold. That’s for sure. It was dark- but in dark times, what difference does it make. Two twin boys. Not more than five or six years of age. They were one and apart. They were alone. Perhaps orphans. Their only source of refuge was in each other and the power of imagination only children so young possess. They were all too innocent and all too unprepared. Will they survive? Have they survived? These questions come back to haunt me sometimes. Sometimes.

Only occasionally do my thoughts betray me. Only occasionally do they escape me. My concerns. My worries. My questions. My comments. My consciousness. My being.  And barely do I succeed in bypassing the gate-keeper who is there to stop me from wondering off into the forbidden territories as he directs me back to that deep pit where I am meant to belong. Merely reminding me of the official dogma of the land, he says “Mind your own business”. And I listen. I succumb. I give in. To myself.

And yet, in times like these, when speaking and humanizing an event seems too much a task a sane person can endure, a painful madness is what we fear is in store for us. We are reminded again and again. ‘Live and let live’ goes the conventional wisdom. It has a soothing mesmerizing effect. We know it is a flawed, conveniently distorted rationalization of going out in the world seeking a good ‘normal’ time, but we buy into it. We are sold into it. For convenient and flawed reasons. To unsee what hides in front of us. Behind us. Beneath us. Just a bit tilted towards the invisible side of the lane.

Those two kids. Beautiful kids. I wonder what has become of them. But are we ever the same persons. Am I the same kid who thought Jupiter and Mars were where girls and boys came from? Who argued with so passionate fervor that Karachi is bigger than Pakistan? Who couldn’t help saying ‘Qaizemaizam’ was the founder of our nation? I don’t know what happened to that little kid. I’d love to meet him. All I have are a few memories of him and the exciting world he lived in. I wish I could go back. But could I wish the same for them. Would they like to go back? In that single moment. When history stops and mourns. It mourns existence. Will they like to go back? Will they like to be where they are today? I’ll never truly know.

It was in Quetta. That beautiful valley town enchanted with cherished memories of my childhood. Ziarat, a popular hill station resort, was not far away- a weekend’s distance. My family spent four years in Quetta when I was a kid. But this time I was on a short visit. This isn’t something so ancient. Ancient treasures aren’t very well received anyway. The image of Jinnah’s residency in Ziarat exists today in my ancient imagination. But so does this. This moment. This memory. This reflection. This guilt.

It was two or three years ago. I met up with old friends. We hanged out in different places across the city. The freezing night was begging for a heavy garma garam (freshly hot) meal. We decided to have some juicy seekh kebabs of the Lazzat Kadda (House of Taste), a small celebrated restaurant near Liaquat Market. It was late when we got there. It gets late pretty early in Quetta. We laughed off the evening.

It was when we were leaving that a friend directed our attention towards those two young invisible boys. Two intensely shivering, identical souls were sleeping on the side of the footpath. They had grabbed on to each other viciously and tightly. As if their young lives depended on it. As if the universe was hanging in balance. They were using each other’s bodies as blankets. They were both only wearing the thinnest of shalwar kameez outfits. They were fighting a battle against an obscenely cold-hearted weather in an obscenely cold-hearted world. Alone. Scared. Resilient. Powerful.

There are times. Sometimes. When I escape myself.  That shivers go down my spine. Not from feeling cold but from feeling overwhelmed by horror. The horror of the event is unspeakable. But what is terrifying to me most is not the event. It is not the scene of seeing two chipmunks left alone in the tragedy of existence. It’s those words that give me nightmares. It’s those words that are truly breathtaking. They force me to self-reflection. They allude me to the society I live in. They push me to myself. They ask me whether I am still there. As a person. As a feeling being. As there. Available. To not ‘live and let die’. To care enough to ‘live and not let die’.

Those words were uttered by a shopkeeper. He said ‘they’re used to it. No worries’.

 

The Cost of Caring

CareWe live in a world of horror. A world of trembling despair. Of playful murder. Of playful strategy. Of senseless, random, vague bombing from a remote control held by someone taking incessant breaks between his munching of doritos and sipping of diet coke.  Of someone saying that others are the cause of our problems as he ignites fear, steals our sense of empathy, and appeals to the monster that hides in the scariest locked-up parts of our souls- and then we hurt others; and we feel nothing. We know this. We ignore this. We see. We pass by.

Being passive onlookers is abruptly convenient. It is an exercise in sleeping a dreamless sleep. It is an exercise in fearing that which cannot escape the sight our eyes have held in store for our awaken selves. It is to run away from the risk of seeing and of knowing and of feeling. It is an exercise in sanity. But is it, really?

Are we ready to embark upon the risk of knowing? Are we ready to know that the difference of being labeled a Tutsi rather than a Hutu on a piece on paper can mean being exposed to creative torture, of the worst forms of rape and slaughter, of the sight of seeing one’s whole family being put to rest slowly and painfully. Are we ready to worry less about what movie will be out this summer and worry more about the cries and woes of the families of the many daily ‘targeted’ and killed, and counted. And how can we stay unmoved when fascist governments terrorize thousands and traumatize millions more. And how can we remain calm when the strongest people on earth decide to do some ‘collateral damage’- experienced by the weak, euphemized by the powerful.

It seems as though we are left with the wisdom laden in the phrase ‘Ignorance is Bliss’. But this raises more questions than it answers. Is escaping the problem an actual solution? Is closing the eyes going to stop the inevitable? One can still ask, in further retrospect, can we offer a solution? Can we do anything else other than closing our eyes?

Maybe we can’t do much. But this would be replying to a wrong question. It’s not a question of what we ‘can’ but of what we ‘should’ be doing. Should we do something? And even when we can’t, should we care?

Caring has a cost. To care is to feel and to share. It is also to share feelings. It is to put oneself in another’s place. It may come in feeling the happiness and excitement others enjoy in those all too small things. But it also means that you have to feel the dread and blunt pain that someone else is put through. To care is not something to do, but something to be. To be human is to care. To be human is to accept the concept of ‘humanity’ and extending that concept to others.

Humanity is a wholesale concept. You either accept it completely or you simply don’t. You cannot be selective in your humanity. This means to be truly human, you cannot simply enjoy your life while forgetting what others go through. Similarly, you cannot merely welcome the joy in life as you run away from its dark side. This is where the crisis of Capitalism truly lies at. Capitalism tries to steal from us the very notion of what it means to be human.

The culture of Capitalism forces a ‘success model’ down our throat which pretends to be an undisputable fact of life- the only ‘normal’ way of life. Success for us is something of a life purpose. It is the only meaningful pursuit a materialist existence has to offer.  To have a career is something we must all strive to achieve with a narrow and blinded vision. Career is the highest purpose of life, virtually becoming the sole source of meaning- a very meaningless source of meaning.  This is a negation of any pursuit which demands that we help our fellow beings. It is also a negation of caring about our fellow beings. This is because it forces us to empty our minds from all distractions that stop us from focusing on our career.

We are moving towards a world where we function on a need-to-know basis. We must be ignorant to be successful. And we must seek meaning in a pursuit of happiness where we are mere functionaries of a production line. We must be productive, efficient and hardworking. The only problem this poses is one of meaning and empathy, of caring and being human.