The Great Help (Hope) lessness of our times

22 crore cases, 46 lakh deaths and rising. Orphans. Learning losses. Unemployment. Poverty. Hunger. Malnutrition. Depression. Inequality. Inequity. War. Hatred. Oppression. Discrimination.

“A weird time in which we are alive. We can travel anywhere we want, even to other planets. And for what? To sit day after day, declining in morale and hope.” - Philip K. Dick, The Man in the High Castle

Seems like it has been years since I have felt some purposefulness to wake up or go to sleep at night. The ever unfolding, unending crises (plural) around and within makes me want to rather lie in bed, staring into the roof wishing I was deluded, sometimes, unalive. After over 45 days of forcing myself to live in a cocoon, for the first time in years, I feel emptied. My cup of life poured out lying in bed, sleepless for third night in a row, at 3AM. It started many years ago, what today some might call the “pre-covid era”, a sense of impending doom. A sense of there not being a future to look forward to.

Growing up as a first-generation migrant in an urban Bengaluru in the 90s, the burgeoning cosmopolitan city was filled with aspiration, ambition, hope and inspiration. The world was on an upward trajectory. Reaping the benefits of a globalized, growing economy meant not just access and opportunity of the world but also a great sense of possibility. The only way was up. People coming out of poverty, growing entrepreneurship, increasing democratic stability, a population filled with optimism (if not for self, then for their progeny). It was also the longest time since any big global war, most of us born well after the last one. Each of my friends and I had only our own imaginations to limit greater achievement. Our parents wanted us to become engineers, doctors, lawyers, bureaucrats, scientists, migrate to ‘greater countries’ like USA, UK, Germany. The annual growth in GDP of 7-8% was a given.

The last decade or more though has been starkly different. The few successes and islands of hopes have not been able to keep my spirits up because of the enormity and the unwavering nature of the tragedies.

Forever wars waging in the Middle East and other civil wars nearby throwing crores into crises. The earliest tragedy that comes to mind is one involving the Syrian Refugees. The image of a child washed ashore still lingers on. The growing “acquisitions” of China across countries, the selfish international transactions, exasperated by the likes of Trump, Kim Jong Un, Erdogan, Xi etc., and more recently the taking over of Afghanistan by the very power that was supposed to have been the “enemy”. Add to this the climate crisis which is a ticking bomb, formally confirmed by the United Nations itself. All of this has made the world order unreliable and diametrically opposite of what I had come to believe. The moral and intellectual layers of the world have been dismantled.

India too had its share of tragedies. The battles waged across the Indo-Pak border leaving so many of our soldiers and civilians dead. The many battles fought within our borders in Central and Northeastern India with our own citizens. Regardless of strategic and operational victories, the battles have extracted a price leaving many to desire for basics of human life such as existence, food, water, shelter, dignity etc.

In addition to these have been the dismantling of India as I knew it. Regardless of the side I listen to, the very structure of our nation has been hit with crisis after crisis. Corruption. Scandals. Extremism. Institutional corrosion. Poor economy. Political mudslinging. Polarization. Our democracy is in peril, a thought echoed by all sides of the debate, difference of opinion about root causes notwithstanding. 

Come 2020 it was a sharper descent into the abyss!

Words cannot express the anguish, helplessness and sadness that the global pandemic brought on. From trying to find a way to buy groceries to life saving oxygen cylinders, protecting myself with masks and sanitizers to finding ICU beds to save strangers, from trying to stay in touch over video to physically distancing from fellow humans, from force-fitting work into my home to finding food/money for others. The changes have been innumerable. I could not but react to the situations around me because who, ever in their life has had to undergo so many transitions, all at once, without a choice? I saw people distance themselves more from those less privileged than from the ones who were “their own” – wearing a mask the moment a hawker passed by but ignoring when its somebody in a car. I saw people demand their individual spaces be “respected” physical and otherwise, regardless of the cost the other had to bear to do so. I found asking myself one day, what do I care about the most? My safety or the respect and comfort I can provide someone else? Why should I have to make a choice from such imbalanced options? I did not want to deal with any such difficult questions, I couldn’t. So many of my friends, acquaintances faced personal losses. I couldn’t muster the bare minimum courtesy to check in with most of them. I didn’t know if I could provide comfort without myself being shattered. So I sucked it up and pushed on. I found solace in “supporting the system” deal with this great human tragedy, all the while feeling guilty of not being able to support myself or my immediate circle. But no time for guilt. If I don’t do it then who will? If I don’t stay strong then who will?

I can’t even imagine what crores of others would’ve gone through. The migrant workers who walked thousands of kilometers only to be shoved away into quarantine buildings or huts without food. The countless children who lost their parents and are now scrambling for life. The crores of women who got pushed into extraordinary burden at an already abusive home. For probably the first time in human history, definitely in our lived history, has the entire human race had one common experience – that of the pandemic. There is not a single person in the country and the world who has not either directly or indirectly had to bear the consequences of this crisis. Many more consequences of the pandemic have started surfacing recently and I anticipate more will follow – rural debt, child labour, poverty, hunger, depression, unemployment etc. The mental toll on our fellow humans I believe will unleash more horrors. When has an entire population ever been so mentally unhealthy? What happens to such a society? I cannot fathom but I can see patterns. Individuals, communities, organizations, every human group seems to be revisiting their priorities. I remember coming across a recent McKinsey article around how the pandemic has made many change jobs. I can see people redrawing their boundaries with people – in personal and professional relationships. I can see people making choices keeping only themselves in mind. Not that these didn’t happen before, but I have never seen so many people do it and so often. I always believed we depended on each other, across peoples. What happens when we all start exerting rigid boundaries around ourselves?

None of this is that which I can help. The tragedies across the world, India and those of the pandemic. Every action of mine is miniscule to the point that it is meaningless. I cannot help anything or anyone. So I sucked it up and pushed on. How are you? Meh, okay. What’s up? Good, you? What are you up to these days? Nothing much, just. Are you doing good? Yeah, it’s okay. How is work? Going on. How is life? Going on. You didn’t call back. Yeah, I got busy, sorry, what’s up? You’ve grown fat. Yeah, just been sitting and eating all day. Heard you did good on that work piece. Oh, okay.

I was helpless. I have always been helpless. I couldn’t study what I wanted to study. I couldn’t convince the love of my life not to leave me. I couldn’t say no when it was possible. I couldn’t achieve success that I wanted to. I couldn’t take care of my family. I couldn’t influence my colleagues to take a different path. I couldn’t travel to the places I liked. I couldn’t learn a musical instrument. I couldn’t become the school president. I couldn’t become a sportsman. I couldn’t set up a sustainable intervention in the state. I couldn’t continue gym. I couldn’t change people’s lives. I couldn’t teach 64 kids basic reading and writing. I couldn’t maintain good friends. I couldn’t take care of myself. I couldn’t help anything in life. Hell, I cannot even wake up today. I am helpless and hopeless. The only thing I can do is quit. So I did. I forced myself to take a long leave of absence.

“There is such a thing as too much loss. Too much has been taken from you both - taken and taken and taken, until there's nothing left but hope, and you've given that up because it hurts too much. Until you would rather die, or kill, or avoid attachments altogether, than lose one more thing.” - N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

One of the unique things about human mind I read recently is that it has a confirmation bias. We look for data that confirm our beliefs. My historic helplessness is cherry picked data to reinforce my current helplessness, caused by the immense pain, rather pains (we need a more apt plural for multiple and parallel pain). I still don’t know what it is going to take for me to deal with it.

When you jump a cobra, it spits out venom. When you jump a tortoise, it recoils into its shell. When you flash your headlights on a deer unexpectedly, it freezes. Fight, flight, freeze. These are natural responses to any pain or even anticipated pain. Humans too have the same response. When someone raises their voice in anger, I freeze, then either subjugate or get aggressive. When I am pained, I go quiet.  The tragedies of the world, India and COVID have induced enormous pain, one that angered me and I responded, with increased aggression. Until eventually, I saw that the tragedies did not yield and my pain is unending. Then, I froze and recoiled into my shell. Logic tells me that I have exhausted all “natural” responses to pain – fight, flight and freeze. I am still helpless.

One of the most elemental differences between all life forms and me (a human) is my ability to defy “logic”. Logic told Wright Brothers humans couldn’t fly but they figured out a way. Logic told Gandhi that one man couldn’t bring down the British Empire, but he figured out a way. Logic told Malala that a woman cannot attend school in conservative parts of Pakistan, she figured out a way. A lion when it sees another being will think – is it food, mate or enemy and respond accordingly. Any other possibility is not even entertained, it walks away. It can’t stop to have a conversation and “get to know another life form”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnNXiO48oTY

This figuring out of a way, defying “logic” comes from the fact that humans can imagine something other than “natural”. Humans can imagine a possibility, we can imagine a just world, we can imagine a building, a concept and so on. It is what has made all things around us possible. We imagine a better world, hope for it. I do have a choice. I can continue go on with the “natural” responses just like all living beings, and it is comforting to do so. I don’t have to stand up, it won’t ever be my fault or I can embrace the most human power, hope. I can embrace the pain of what is around me and work towards what I hope could be. What else do I have left to do if not to rely on the one thing that sets me apart as a species?