A woman often finds herself at a total loss when she thinks about starting a sustainable life. She wakes up, and is given a heap of options to choose from but she cannot make up her mind. Everything around us is linked with something that is not sustainable. What is sustainable, you ask. It is a way of life in which the present generation is able to think about the upcoming generation. This is the crudest and most simple definition of the term. We are leading sustainable lives when the resources we use do not burn up. We are living sustainable lives when we can proudly say that our children will not struggle against the elements of nature.
But we are unable to live sustainable lives. We are now hitched to the machines, and we have given up. A few of us are trying. They are really trying and when I meet them, I find a kind of peace in their demeanor, a kind of slowness in their way of thinking, and I feel like saying that they are doing good. But beyond that, I/we cannot do anything. And the efforts of the few who are trying so hard seem to go to waste.
Ecology – we find this term everywhere. Eco is perhaps one of the most flippantly used prefixes by corporates of the world. They want to present themselves as the AVENGERS of Earth. And then there are those who are planning to leave earth and colonize other planets.
We know the above picture. We are very well aware of it. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp – these things keep us connected with the latest in trends and news. We know what is latest even if we don’t want to. And when we don’t feel like being connected, we go on detox tours. This is the culture of today. Everything has a price. And the price of being alone is the greatest.
You just cannot be alone. You just cannot be happy with yourself anymore. You have to have a prefix of eco around you. You want a screen around you. And I am not saying that it is a sad state of affairs. This is the human condition.
I do not want to be one of those who continue to harp about a ‘golden past’. There is nothing golden about the past except one’s childhood. Every generation has plundered the earth. It’s just that today’s ways of plundering are more dangerous than before. A golden past cannot be a collective term. It is very personal. So I am not sad. I am not even angry. Most importantly, I am not defeatist.
The expanse of snow has reduced. Fresh water is not available. People say the next World War will be fought for water. I am not sure what to say to that. Perhaps I can join those few who are trying their best to live and promote sustainable lives, and contribute a little. But I already know that that won’t give me any kind of peace.
Not that it is peace I am after. I am just reflecting over things. I am just trying to digest the amount of information that is being thrown at me, that I am consuming.
Data and data. Datum scares me now. I do not know what to do with it, except present it in the form of more data. Comparing them, making analytical comments, trying to fight a battle which, on the face of it, seems non-existent. A battle for EARTH is not a battle when the ones who are fighting do not know against whom they are fighting. And they really don’t. I am sure.
I am an insomniac. But it is not because ‘the world is going to the dogs’. It is not because ‘my conscience does not let me sleep’. I do not really care about the eco. I just care about myself, even though I do not know who this ‘self’ is.
She goes about her tasks of the day, ticking one item after another, and keeps telling herself that she is doing fine, while the corporates, the ones who decide the future of the Earth, want to live. They want to live and prosper and succeed. Success is everything. This is an unhappy essay, but I am not.
Sometimes the most melancholy writings are the most positive.