*These thoughts are spurred by some recent comments exchanged between me and another blogger on this site. This reference is not required except that it serve as a reminder to me to keep my thoughts aligned and in perspective.

This age that we call ours is akin to an ugly looking monster, strangely, human at core – but a gross mutation of how it was originally conceived – against being a perfect clone of divinity – that fashioned the human mind in its own likeness – a cross breeding of sorts of human sentiments and emotions – an un-equal balance in serving goodness and receiving badness in return has turned this age into a goliath of indifference and cruelty, mind numbing such that when we view it as stand alones, we find it difficult to breathe... but when looked from above... we see a teeming mass of humanity, disfigured and mutated... and a microscopic view would divulge that we are as much as part of the muck as is everyone else.

So who is presumptuous enough to thump their chests and say, ‘No, not me! I am not a part of this strange violation of human basics... NOT ME...!! NOT ME!!!’

And who is pretentious enough to snort at the world and say, ‘Look, what has the world come to? Are these even breathing people who are capable of such a strange brand of indifference?’

Well, my question – and what is the world? Who is this world? And who makes it all up?

Apathy – as it is, a very strange word. It is alien to human composition and is like an infection in the air, highly contagious, that we catch and get infected. I can say for sure that humans, as they are, were NOT born with apathy. You couldn’t convince me otherwise.

A little girl, not too many years ago, embroiled in the cruellest mass extermination of our age, holed up inside the attic in the house of a bunch of some very brave people who chose to show cognizance of their innate inner humanness sans fear – she used to write a diary.

That diary has become a sort of benchmark of hope of our times. It shows that as much as human spirit might dwindle in its capacity to show empathy and tolerance, there is an iota of unrelenting goodness in itself that will not destruct in the face of gas chambers and organized armies out to commit mass genocide and ethnic cleansing.

That girl was Anne Frank and what she wrote, a line, not verbatim was, ‘I believe that people, basically are all good...’

I remember this line a lot.

And then I look out of my window, down my ivory tower and I see such an aggravating dance of fury that commits strange violations against this very sentiment, that I often wonder, was she, the girl, a teen at her best, getting delusional stuck in that attic, waiting, wishing, hoping and praying for freedom, which didn’t come... as she died, contaminated, sick and emaciated- but in hope.

Her goodness, natural goodness was rewarded with badness that cross bred with this monster... that we call our own age... and the infection is growing.

I see that people overrate goodness. Its natural considering that since it’s such a rarity – available for free and in abundance when one is natural, innocent, and yet not contaminated – even available sporadically when one functions and acts as a stand alone – but rare, and getting rarer as the individual gets lost into a community, a people, a generation, an age.

I hate the fact that goodness has been so overrated that people have started deluding themselves that the indifference and cruelty that is projected by a group of people is immediately rejected and those people/perpetrators are branded as ones who have lived a cloistered existence, removed from realities of life, half grown humans with their basic human qualities thwarted in infancy.

I hate the fact that such people – the detractors, find it so easy to so conveniently remove themselves from the perpetrating group and cast aspersions on them and act like they would ‘DEFINITELY’ have acted otherwise.

Truth is – these people, the detractors are speaking as stand alones – as individuals – assured of their basic humanness being intact and assured that they would not show the greatest show of apathy and cruelty in the face of a given traumatic experience. They overrate their goodness – naturally undermining the strength of badness that feeds off them as much as it feeds of those who are standing right now under the spotlight – blamed and critiqued.

Like feminism of today – feminism only in name – we like to flash mascots of goodness in the face of those who don’t resist their weakness and their natural apathy that they have absorbed over time. These people take instances where a group, mob has shown deep indifference towards a sad event – and then they wonder... how did it get so bad, how could someone show such extreme lack of concern and basic etiquettes?

Then comes the branding – that probably the perpetrating party has never been a victim themselves... that ‘victims’ per se show greater empathy and by that rule – those that have grown apathetic have never sat on a victim’s seat.

This mindset appals me.

And leads me to wonder, how cloistered these detractors are themselves? How far removed from reality?

First, I would like to question – who amongst the existing population of the world, barring few lucky ones - has not been a victim of some social crime, personal infringement, disaster, accident? Trust me, the way I see it – all of us, at one point of time or another, have been victims of our lot. The fact that bad things happen only to others is a sort of defense mechanism all of us exhibit even while tragedy is striking us.

So it’s clear that there is no spare victim. All of us have been victimized at some point of time or another. The degree differs, naturally – but there is no absent victim that is for sure.

So whatever happened to the victim’s sense of heightened empathy? Why don’t we ALL go this distance and commit acts that suit our status as kind, involved and nurturing human beings? Given that we have all been victims of some or the other infringement at some point of time in our lives – why is social apathy persisting anyway?

Given the detractors’ view – there should be utopia! Then why such a persisting dystopia?

There are some crystallized delusions doing the rounds here, I’m afraid.

As I said – as stand alone individuals – we still do have that common, luxurious sense of benefaction and kindness – the last straw of human kindness we show in little acts – sometimes even in abundance – but mostly, as a people – we have grown into an age of apathy – the monster of our age – growing stronger with crimes perpetrated against innocents that they learnt to shut out their own tragedies – and while at it – they have also learnt to shut out others’.

What else can explain a mob staring like voyeurs at a bleeding car driver – mauled and crushed – dying on the middle of the road – while the clones of this age stare, blinking – no one moving because no one wants to get embroiled in long winding technicalities that ensue when one helps a road accident victim – each reminded grievously, in their subconscious that to be empathetic one pays a certain price.

Of course, by no means I am marginalizing the goodness in some people, individuals who stick out their necks and go the distance and pay the price smiling – because their goodness, is well – just so intact. Infact, there are even groups of people – NGOs, Social Organizations, Communities that have rid themselves of this infection – evolved and heightened their sense of their basic humanness and gone ahead and shown positive results against a damning and a near certain prevalent disease that infects us all.

What I hate and reject is the sensibility of such people perched on a pedestal who won’t understand why a mob/a group/ a terrorist organisation/ an insurgent group / an apathetic bunch of voyeur mob would behave the way it does. Such people who will conveniently remove themselves from the scenario and condemn others who have been infected with something of which we are equally to be blamed for breeding – OUR AGE OF APATHY.

I think these times of free thinking – and existentialism – where one does what one deems fit – taking responsibility only of self – (blame to be a part of this happy group of self serving people, as well) – could be one reason why individualism has become such a curse. We put on these blinkers where we see ourselves come clean – sans blemish – uncorrupted – why not? When the rest are killing, and maiming and turning a blind eye – I just donated a bunch of money to this old age home? WHY NOT?

Maybe I am wrong – but when I see it – there must be something I must have done too. Something that went unnoticed – when as a group of bullies I laughed at a hapless guy who was overdressed that it made him view girls as such bitches – that he won’t care if he left one pregnant and then stuck up... Of course, the other day I saw this old guy with no front teeth smiling at me – and I gave him a treat and send him off home, happy and on a full stomach... for a day.

Personal goodness vs. breeding apathy as a group.

It’s out there. You have to believe it. I don’t believe that some people in the world were such wretches that they turned into monsters overnight... They could be anti-social elements, Maoists, psychopaths, delinquents, terrorists, even heads of states...

Someone made them into such.

And I wonder if anyone of us can shirk the blame?

It’s a collective age of apathy and only a collective age of conscious – not five year plans (of course they are remedial too) can cure us of this disease. Kindness has to be abundant and everyone needs to be given their due. Even terrorists and delinquents are people. Just because they are different does not mean they are NOT human; that they haven’t been victims at some point of time or another. There also needs to be swift dispensing of justice – and equality in serving justice – and more forgiveness –to those who have perpetrated grave apathy because somewhere we forced them to grow the way they are.

This way, we can hope that when our moment of apathy visits, someone will forgive us and help us to move on, better still, might hold our hands and teach us to grow back into humans again.

Blaming, ridiculing and branding, a group, a people – as cloistered humans – the sins of the ones on a pedestal have just increased the level of apathy in the atmosphere and we just gulped apathy infested air and it’s already churning in our system.

That was rhetorical.

I am not even sure if I conveyed what I wanted to say – here. Guess all I wanted to say was that please don’t overrate your personal goodness. It’s nothing to gloat upon. It’s only so natural that it be there. But collectively, what we have become, needs some fixing. We’re all criminals because at some point of time or another – we helped in building this monster of apathy and only we can pull it down.

We were not fashioned to be indifferent human beings. Something must have happened to have turned us so. Act proactively in tearing down such walls of apathy, don’t condemn – ridicule and brand. We have all been victims – don’t undermine others’ invisible tragedies by saying that they must have been cloistered to not have known compassion.

Maybe their compassion didn’t deal them a fair hand.

In a system breakdown, everyone is to be blamed. Man was then, never an island.

 Posted Originally at: http://supriya.blogliterati.com