Time to Change Your Own World

This second phase of COVID, which started in March 2021, certainly proved to be more detrimental than the first, to most people. And as the months rolled by, it just kept getting worse. Strangely, it was not the physical fear of getting COVID which was getting people down, but something else… something inexplicable… something just not good. A feeling of fear and uncertainty. A feeling that life will never be the same again. All this was leading to loads of anxious people suffering from borderline depression. Loneliness seemed to be killing many, even those living in full households.

I had family members discussing strange feelings, overseas friends expressing paranoia, wondering whatever happened to their old lives. Friends in Bombay were plain ‘fed up’ and decided to just ‘chuck it, take a chance’ and zoomed off to exotic destinations the moment certain countries ‘opened’ up.

Each one seemed to be going through their very own existential crisis and unable to deal with it.

Until now, when we suffered emotionally, it may have been as an outcome of losing someone – husband, wife, mother, father, sister, friend… Or it may have been due to business losses, or jobs. Not getting admission in a college you really wanted to go to, and so on. Now, each situation involved all of the above and it didn’t make sense. What fault is it of ours? Why is this happening? No answers.

Last year, during COVID 1, we concentrated on refocusing our energies on positive aspects. We looked at our existence from a creative, aesthetic point of view. We cooked, painted, caught up with one another across the globe. We went away to our second homes, in the hills, by the sea. Writers wrote books, bloggers created impressive content and the world, though confused and grappling with COVID fears, took it in its stride and with positivity. It will soon end, we said, turning on the music and starting to dance. Great time to get fit!

But no, WHO, with its contradictory messages and news posts, predicted the worst was yet to come. The virus had mutated, they said, the Delta variant would bring about the new disasters in COVID 3. This announcement only added to the gloom and the dread. In reality, nobody really knows what’s going on. But the turmoil, like being tumbled endlessly inside a washing machine, seemed to go on. Mental health at the brink.

Covishield, Covaxin, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, the new mantra on everyone’s lips, doesn’t help either. Is the vaccine good or is it bad? Will it help me survive or will it kill me? Should I take it or should I not? Booster shot, yes, WHO said one must. No, wait, now they are saying, not just yet! And what on earth is this thing called graphene oxide that’s  supposed to be in those vials?

In the meanwhile, alongside, what continued was famines and wars, rapes and murders, elections and electioneering. Bitcoin gaining momentum, Elon Musk going off into space, thankfully returning alive. Governments were falling, governments were coming to power. Israel was showing its strength and brutality against Palestine and the US its stupidity and lack of any grace in Afghanistan. It was shamed, stripped of its superpower status, never to regain it. The curse of a torn and shattered nation and the wails of many a grieving Afghan mother will certainly ensure that. And then, unnoticed by most, leaders of five African nations (Haiti, Tanzania, Ivory Coast, Eswatini and Burundi) were killed or died in mysterious situations, all fairly young and within four months. Wasn’t proved but these were presidents who did not support the cause of the vaccines. Did anyone connect any dots?

Okay, the point I am making is, the world has changed beyond recognition. By which I mean the people have changed. And once the virus disappears, as it will have to, there will be further changes. A new existential crisis is around the corner. For anyone above 50 and 60, dealing with those changes will be very challenging.

Let’s brace ourselves. Prepare for it. As many have already started doing. Go the Wabi Sabi way. Shrug off. Unburden yourself. Like how in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Don’t carry the cross of the world on your shoulders. Change your own attitude towards your own life. Introspect, cut the flak, get selfish, think of yourself. Dig into your own heart and mind and see what it is that YOU really want to do. Die rich? No? Then sell off your properties, first thing. The ones that you bought as ‘investment for the future’. The future is now. Go on that world tour you have been dreaming of ever since you first started working. Buy your favourite niece that car she wants, you have a neighbour struggling with finances, help him! Give, give, give. To charity, to hungry children on the street. Take a bunch of them and feed them a good meal, try this in different areas, for a whole month.

Cheer up a little of your immediate world. See the rippling effect it will have. We all need to do our own little bit, to help the world along.