Tell me I am wrong

An African legend says that death entered the world in the following way: long ago, people were able to shed their skins, like a snake. Everyone did this and lived forever, renewing their youth. One time, a woman forgot that she should do this and put her old skin back on, and death came into the world.

In this day and age, death comes into the world by indifference. Indeed, we start dying when we become silent about things that once we thought that mattered. Someone said that, but my memory doesn’t serve me well these days.

When but especially why did we stop caring? When did we stop being humane? Which lethal gene mutation took place and modified our most important trait, altruism? When did we stop speaking up and standing up for what is just? Doesn’t silence deafen you? Isn’t keeping a middle lane just another way of masking cowardice?

We all know there is benevolence in the midst of evil, although this naive belief doesn’t diminish our perplexity when comes to our natural born indifference and selfishness. Is indifference an innate feature or a learnt behavior? What say you?

Is lack of information an excuse? Are curiosity and caring for our human fellows, and ultimately for ourselves as species, fed only by proximity? Isn’t world just a small village and us just villagers that live on different streets? Isn’t my 6.5 billion people tribe in danger if half of it dies of hunger? Does world end where our street ends?

Shall we self contently just say “Oh, well, at least we have a bed to sleep and a sandwich to eat, and the luxury of a bulb”?. If charity begins at home, isn’t world my home? What do you mean by “borders”? What is that? Please, explain.

True, not many of us lost their sound sleep over the fact that 2 billion people have no electricity and more than 1.2 billion are dying of hunger. As we speak.

Meaning, one in six people is hungry right now. John, James, Melissa, Samantha, Samuel, and Alexander had lunch today. But Chibale and Badru didn’t. Did you have yours? Was it tasty?

Half of the same world lives on less than $2 a day, and 1 billion survive on the margins of subsistence with less than $1 a day; another 1.1 billion people lack access to safe water, and 2.6 billion do not have access to any form of improved sanitation services. Simple world stats. For us. For others, a painful tragedy.

While we are debating whether there is god center in the brain or not, over 854 million people are illiterate. To those atheism versus religion in school is like a slap on a beggar’s face. Shouldn’t we try educating them before telling them there is no god, that Intelligent Design is BS and Banana Man is a complete nut? How condescending is our 5 o’clock intellectual chitchat while others dig through garbage for some filthy bread?

Being a middle-laner is not anymore a position of rationality and intellectual Zen, but became sheer spinelessness. Taking sides is a moral obligation.

The moment we just shrug our shoulders knowing our votes do not matter and voting process is just an irrational deed, we start fading away. If we think we don’t matter, we will end up not mattering.

We should not settle and stop searching for anything that requires (emotional, personal, or intellectual) effort.

Serenity can’t be all that we demand from life, right? We haven’t stopped fighting for and hanging with our claws and fangs for love, passion, ideas, outrageous theories, and emotional tumult. We are not born old. We can’t be just another homo vexus, vexed species, that reached our limitation, right? Tell me this is not terminus for us. Tell me I am wrong. Please. (2009)