Reclaiming our Lost Humanity
We have created a culture of progress which follows the linear arrow of time. Its movement being measured by quantitative markers like GDP. While deep within us we experience the loss of a more enrichening life which we have left behind and long to bring back. A person grows from ‘within’. A nation progresses from ‘without’. And sometimes a nation’s progress is at the cost of a person’s growth. Consequently when we begin to realise what we have lost as persons, all the progress achieved is revealed to be a poor substitute.
Not just Disruption but Discontinuity
In the culture of Silicon Valley emphasis is laid not just on disruption but discontinuity for achieving exponential progress. The ‘Before’ has to have no relation to the ‘After’. We have seen this happen in the way our lives have changed post the Internet and the mobile phone. And the speed of change is accelerating. There are limits to the capacity of a human being to adjust to discontinuous upheaval. The human person needs continuity; needs anchors; needs to feel secure and safe; needs belonging; needs a milieu for growth. When these get rooted out we begin to long for their reinstatement. As T.S. Eliot said
“There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again.”
What we have Lost and need to Recover
We have lost our faith in humanity. We need to recover it. We live in a world of cynicism. No matter what anybody says about anything we not only doubt it but refuse to even harbour the thought of it being a possibility. We don’t believe in anything or anybody anymore. We are committed to not being committed. Structures crumble. Institutions rattle. Norms and rules breakdown. We start living from transaction to transaction. There is no continuity. No covenant or faith or commitment.
We have lost our civility. We need to recover it. We do not show basic decency to one another. We no longer respect one another. We have become callous and rude. The human being is treated as an expendable. Collateral damage for those fighting for power. To be used and thrown away. Not respected nor nurtured.
We have lost our sense of dignity. We need to recover it. Every person and the whole person is sacred. Whether the person is disempowered or disadvantaged; belongs to another faith; is of a different colour; has a different sexual orientation; is from a different nation; is from a different class or caste, that person is still a human being like all of us and worthy of our caring.
We have lost our feeling of community. We need to recover it. In the village and in the early stages of urbanisation people in the neighbourhood knew one another not only by name but by circumstances. And were willing to reach out to anyone who was in need. And it was not made out to be a big deal. People just supported one another as if it was the natural thing to do. There was no effort. It was not contrived.
We have lost our simplicity. We need to recover it. It doesn’t mean that we shy away from the complexity of the world today. But as human persons we need to see value in being simple in our needs. There was a time when people staying in villages had deep wisdom yet were illiterate. Today we have knowledge but no wisdom. People then, had deep trust and faith in the human person and in life. Many of them would sleep without closing their doors or windows at night. They were happy with the little they had. Life was more than the possessions they had.
We have lost our connection with our roots. We need to recover it. We are destroying ourselves in destroying nature. We can no longer feel with nature. We can no longer commune with nature and experience its healing. We have schooled our lives within the insides of a building whether it be a house, school, theatre, hospital and so on. We are forgetting what’s on the outside. Very soon there will be nothing but concrete outside.
We have lost our sense of God within. We need to recover it. If we don’t have the sense of the sacred then all what we try to regain will lack soul. It will be a wasted and futile effort. We need God to be in the centre of our lives. A God who enables us to live in harmony; a God who imbues us with compassion; a God who instils us with Faith and Hope. As Jessica Millsaps said
When all else failed
Hope didn’t
She flew through us all
Letting us know, we still had her
We just needed to look hard enough
Hope was there
Hope remembers
