Are we becoming insensate? A 'numb' generation.
Last night, on my way back from work, two events happened in the span of 5 minutes, that left a big question in my mind.
A block from my workplace in Midtown Manhattan, I saw a large group of office-goers crowding the entrance to a 5-star hotel. Upon asking, I found out that Serena Williams & a few other A-list players were going to participate in a friendly match in the hotel courtyard & people were waiting around to catch a glimpse of the Greats. Understandable.
I walked on…
Another block over, a completely different crowd stood outside the Black Rock corporate office. People in bohemian dresses, floral shirts, shorts, in various stages of wear, handmade signs of ‘Save the Amazon’, no microphone, using their voices to call out Black Rock as guilty & asking them the hard questions for which they MUST be held accountable.
Some context, in case you do not know, the Amazonian Rainforests have been on fire for several months, and these fires, per experts, have been caused due to massive deforestation that was done to support growing agricultural lands & oil drilling, activities which are being funded by corporations like Black Rock & J P Morgan. Amazon contributes 33% of the world’s fresh air, so this situation is, in fact, very dire. I am not diving deep into the issue itself, but I have linked one article at the bottom of this page.
The thing that bothered me the most was how the same Midtown workers, who were waiting hand & foot to watch Serena play, were sneaking past that crowd, trying to be invisible. As I walked on, trying to be invisible myself, a realization hit me: some of the most affluent, educated people in the world lead some of the most timid, self-centered lives. As long as it doesn’t affect us, we are becoming numb to the pain & suffering around the world. We feel comfortable, putting our air-pods on, eyes glued to our screens, to walk away from everything that is wrong in the world.
I am not an activist trying to make a big change. This is simply food for thought as we go about our lives. The Amazon wildfires are one issue. There are thousands of such planet, social, economic challenges around us. And it is glaringly obvious that it is the mid-/high-income groups living a fairly comfortable lives, the fastest growing cohort around the world, have a role to play. The pain comes from the knowledge that these are, in fact, the people who actually have the intelligence, the resources, the volumes & the platforms to create change.
How can we change our attitudes? How can we stop being immune to the world? Let’s not live small lives centered around me, myself & I. Someday, our grandchildren (yes, it’s going to be that soon), will be living in an uninhabitable planet. And they will blame us as the generation that just didn’t care. And the educated middle-class has a LARGE part to play in changing it.
I rest my case.