After the Music Stopped ..?????? ..........

1920 saw the start of “Jazz” age in United States. Jazz music went viral from small city of New Orleans to biggest cities of the world. It played a significant part in wider cultural changes, and continued to influence for years that followed.

100 years later, the music stopped.

It’s the first time in our living memories that the human society worldwide, and many of its attributes such as economy, politics, entertainment, have just stopped. We have gone back to survival mode.

The pandemic has hit a reset button, only if we can realise.

The lessons learnt from current situation might influence every aspect of human life for long period of time to come. We have been forced to revisit some of the 'arts' that we left behind in pace of 'modern' life.  

The art of Silence

"Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers"

As a society, we have forgotten how to become quiet, how to become still. We were always on the move, always busy, always doing, always thinking. We’ve forgotten how to just be. Now there is comparable complete silence around the world. All the noise that human evolution superimposed has been stopped, and we can hear our inner-self. As outside noise is going down, the inner voice is becoming louder and clearer.

The art of Compassion

"Compassion is the basis of morality." ― Arthur Schopenhauer

People locked in houses, some are admitted to hospital and some left without last goodbye. We are witnessing human suffer around us, at a global level. The pain is shared among all races, colour and class of human society. This has made everyone scared, but also enabled to develop compassion across communities. People coming out to help families, friends and neighbours like never before. We are ensuring the vulnerables in society are taken care of, unconditionally.

The art of Gratitude

"Be thankful for the little things, for one day you may look back and realise they were the big things." — Kurt Vonnegut 

Thank you! We say it quite often and rarely with our hearts. With pace of life, many of us put a blind eye towards lot of things around us and took it for granted. The postman, bin man, nurses, cleaners, shopkeepers, teachers, pizza delivery and so on. We used to see them often around us, yet not very much engage our mind to services they provide. Now that we all are locked away inside our homes, these people are running the complex social structure that is essential for modern day society. How can we not thank them with all our heart.

The art of Minimalism

" Consumerism has accustomed us to waste. But throwing away is like stealing it from the poor and hungry."  ― Pope Francis

No more clutter of advertisements garbage to buy what you don’t need. The never-ending urge to buy and need to care for the things we don't use, yes that was life before pandemic. Consumerism has infected human society so much that our list of essential became endless and ever-growing. Life is much simpler and much cleaner now. And we all have access to essential goods and services. For the first time human society is realising what's true meaning of word “essential” is. We are limited to what’s needed to survive healthy.

The art of Unity

" When spiders unite, they can tie down a lion."  ― Ethiopian Proverb

Globalised world has never been fair, no matter which angle we prefer to look at it. While some parts of world enjoys variety & cheaper options on their shopping racks, we ignore the harsh conditions in which the majority of human society lives where these goods are made. Moments like todays can not be confined locally in globalised world. And if globalised world wishes to exist in future, now is the time for absolute unity, for the all of us to work together in solidarity.We must ensure that we are not just exchanging goods and services across borders, we must share common basic living conditions across all of human population, meaning food, water and medial facilities etc.  

The art of Health

" He who has health has hope; and he who has hope has everything."

― Arabian proverb

Eating junk is easy, available 24 x 7. Cost of soda bottle is cheaper than drinking clean water. With fast life, the fast food has become part of human culture. To get rid of junk from our body, we have chemicals to digest it for us. We have evolved from hunter gatherers to self-destructive living organisms consuming harmful chemicals with pleasure or for pleasure. But in current situation we have no medicine against this particular disease. Our only defence is our own health and most of us are now turning towards living a healthier life style. Or in other words we are not living healthier rather we are cutting off junk that we gradually induced in our life style. 

The art of Consciousness

"Save the planet" - No, we need to save ourselves. Earth has seen five mass extinctions, and can allow another if we don't behave

Consciousness towards nature is critical. Since agriculture revolution around 9500 BC, humans are fiddling with nature. We have developed false impression of conquering nature and believed to overpower everything and anything around us. Planet has been here for 4.5 billions years and will remain long beyond human extinction. We have to respect planet’s well defined laws of nature. Otherwise nature can unleash biochemical war against us that can wipe out homo sapiens from the face of earth, happily. 

The art of Living

" You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough " ― Joe Lewis

We have made lot of mistakes around us, for greed, fun or other reasons. We have focused merely on what is right for human race, and constantly disregarded our surrounding. We capture them, kill them and take them as trophy. Our definition of living has just remained to need and greed of humans. And today we stand defenceless against an enemy that is so tiny that we can’t see. With all the above comments, it obvious that we are once again resetting our understanding towards human life on this planet and human society beyond producer-consumer relationship. Why has this happened, what impact will this have and where will human society go from here are just unknown. With so many unknowns, we are realising what we left behind as part of human evolution. This is the time to reflect and introspect. 

We can just wait for pandemic to be over and go back to ignorant, mean and parasitic community

OR

We can step back; reflect, recover and reset.