Becoming Socially Sentient Now

For centuries mankind has been culpable to a way of life through enormous contributions in augmenting the society’s potential to his best interest. From as is to as it should be, humanity’s disposition has characterized a constitution that we call society. On route to action, learning & development, ideation, communication and implementation in a sundry of subjects, man has revealed social behavior. In his lifespan of understanding the essentials for existence, man has consciously and willingly fevered social settings with an acceding eye or by fulfillment through belligerence. In his longing for satisfaction through a coconut of desires, peace has hardly been man’s drive to improve and sustain social camaraderie. Abuse and antagonism on the other hand have been his motivators to an uncanny change. Be it fallacy and extremism, transgression and despotism, befouling the nature for mercenary or modern day warfare and nuclear proliferation, all have been illustrations of an injurious mind.

Over the passage of time, in the darkness of night and through the shining sunlight, man has each day grown cruel to himself, only to get farther away from his inmost self, which is his sole identity. Someone has rightly said that time never stops for anyone. It only adjudicates man’s actions as vigilant pastor of the supernatural power. In hue and cry or happiness and joy, time conveys myriad meanings in its musical tick-tock. It is for man to gather time’s lessons and learn to decipher his actions and reactions to make reparations in himself and his surroundings. Evolving such astuteness now is being sensitive to social needs and trying to become sentient to blazing social issues. Today our society is not just an identity of a particular community but a global abode that is sending SOS each day to man to stop, save, sustain as a chamberlain of humanity. It is for man to use his mind’s wisdom and his heart’s benevolence and compassion to contribute incrementally to set forth an example for the entire fraternity to follow. 

The recent BP oil massacre in the Gulf of Mexico is a fresh example of how man is daunting his own soil. Not surprisingly enough this incident took place just few months later when United Nations declared the year 2010 as the year of Biodiversity. Affecting a large number of plant and animal species deep in the ocean, this episode is a reminder to man to be alert to the sensitivities of his habitat. This incident and many others over the years are stimulus for man to transform his behavior before it becomes overbearing for creation to nurture life. It is like the saying, if you give some, you get some. For some people such outlook becomes precept of life. The significance of contribution however differs from man to man. Ed Stafford, the British explorer who is currently walking the Amazon and is scheduled to finish his expedition this August is a unique example of human endeavor for conserving nature. Today he is a role model and an inspiration for thousands, many among them are young school children whom Stafford helps aware of the life in rainforests. His Amazon’s adventure blog for kids is part of the Prince of Wales Rainforests project for schools that is leading a social cause against tropical deforestation and climate change. With two most recent instances of how man can lead change through his actions and intentions shows his exceptional strength to cue social change. 

Also, in this process of being (what we really are) and becoming (our potential to be) socially conscious, man has the power to self-motivate or get inspired by good virtues to end this war against survival. He has the key to all those locks that fasten free passage for positive human relations, which are the building blocks of the society. Most importantly man has the gift to perceive through his senses that if he has to begin such transition, it has to be now. Leaving things for the future may only account to more problems; it wouldn’t fix the ones that we are facing today. Learning to act now and voluntarily contributing in crisis intervention at individual or group level, in family, community or national level can save mankind from further regression. It shall serve as a turning point in man’s nature for nature. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” 

Copyright (c) 2009-present Dharbarkha.blogspot

Photo Courtesy: Mondolithic.com

Building Hope for Haiti Again

Recent tremors on the Haitian turf are more than just a calamity. These shocks are nature’s one among many signs to mankind as its face-off with the macrocosm. While I am perturbed on the enormity of this catastrophe, I feel such ruckus is more than an augment eye opener. Sometimes it may even look like a nature’s time out to us. Such natural disasters and many others speak deeper than just being earth’s scientific currents that can shake mankind. Dreadful and distressing, yet in a unique manner they caution humanity. Robert Creamer’s article on Huffington Post, ‘It Is Our Moral Responsibility to Help Haiti-And Its In America’s Interest’ seemed to share this in an idiosyncratic manner. He writes about how Haiti was starting to dream through socioeconomic changes and infrastructural prospects and how badly it stands now amid turmoil. However, a ray still exists when he says that Haitians have not lost hope, which is a blazing lesson that an injured and agonized nation can teach us all. 

Also, Robert’s resurrecting theme in his article, in a way, is an alert that we shouldn’t have to wait for a crisis to happen in order to recognize the cognizance of global unanimity. Why does an earthquake have to motivate us to reach out to the world’s poorest nation? And how many of us even knew this about Haiti before? As a rescue mission, most countries today are at Haiti’s beck and call but what happens when the situation normalizes. Are we going to internalize and learn something this time or will it be slowly fading away like the Tsunami crisis. In my view, a ‘help is on the way’ action should not be bounded by such calamitous events. Such thinking should rather be reinforcement for change locally and globally to appreciate the distinctiveness that each of us or each nation has to offer and the synergy that we can create together. This is also a facet that Robert Creamer shares when he encourages America to rebuild Haiti for the price of few CEO bonuses or F-22 fighters. His words unfold us once again to the law of co-existence. Working towards minimizing the poverty gap, starting with individual effort in our neighborhood or community can slowly be motivational for fellow countrymen. Similarly, encouragements towards collective contribution in human and intellectual development on a global scale are potential ways that can rebuild Haiti and also hope for other poor nations around the world. Such humanitarian state of mind and state of a country as a social contagion can certainly echo change and navigate us in a new direction.

Copyright (c) 2009 - present Dharbarkha.blogspot
Photo Courtesy: XOZ/Flickr