Instead, let us be outraged
We frequently hear or read, on television channels, radio stations, or all over the internet, people saying with indignation:
“What an era of decadence we live in, where young women and men are constantly pursuing a life of brainless lust and luxury, where the measure of success is the model of the car we own or the brand of the shoes we wear.”
“What sort of heartless parents abandon their children, or worse, beat them, sequestrate them, and abuse them?”
“What monsters can have the urge or feel the pleasure to rape another person, or a child?”
“It is profoundly unjust and utterly unacceptable that few people’s greed disintegrates families and disperses them across the globe, in search for survival!”
“What kind of a corrupt world do we live in, where some power-hungry humans kill millions of other humans simply because they stand in their way?”
“Etcetera!”
Sometimes, and not often, these are candid cries, emanating from aching hearts and suffering souls, and expressing a genuine outrage on how bad humans are. Certain crimes, especially on children, are unbearable acts of savagery, and all the outrage and indignation are justified. However, aching heart and suffering souls don’t always see things with the necessary objectivity and distance; when candor is pushed beyond its natural boundaries, it could become naivety and consequently irrelevant.
As people shout these indignations, one question occupies my mind: “which conditions and circumstances made humans reach this degraded state of egocentricity and transformed them from intelligent animals into rapists, killers, and greedy cowards?” Many books have been written to answer this important question. Most of them have attributed the responsibility of this transformation from humans into monstrous beasts, to childhood (which is a subset of the Salim-Stalin Chain). They are mostly right! The quality of this period of our life largely defines the quality of the human we later become. Troubled childhoods lead to BIG societal problems and no amount of indignation or outrage about these problems will address the real issues. The outrage could potentially help in raising the awareness and maybe the vigilance of the public, and this is a good thing, but it is not sufficient!
It is not enough to shout our outrage or indignation about the BIG problems that we cannot do much about and neglect other, seemingly smaller, problems, to which, we can unequivocally bring a real solution, or at least a significant contribution to it. Moreover, these “smaller” problems, when they remain unsolved or when they are wrongly assessed or badly dealt with, they accumulate and eventually lead to the “BIG” problems. There are many examples, from our daily lives, of the “smaller” problems. Things we say or do to other people that affect them in a memorable way. Good or bad. The list is long and each one of us can think about moments that affected us in an irreversible way, words we heard that changed our perspective life, or acts we saw or were part of that redefined some of our values and the way we then applied them to ourselves and others. We also can remember instances where we affected the life of others for the better and for the worse. In all that, the most amazing fact is that it doesn’t take much to touch someone’s soul. Few seconds of calm thinking before speaking or acting, a bigger dose of respect and kindness, a touch of wisdom and humility and the entire world will start to look much different and much better. “It is not that simple”, most people would say. “It is not that complex either”, I would reply, “but it could be very difficult”, I would add. It is difficult to take the time before speaking or acting, when we don’t care enough about the other being. And, reversely, it is very easy, if we are driven by the well-being and well-feeling of the other.
It takes 3 simple rules, that we must apply consistently, continuously, and in every moment of our lives:
Refrain from ever hurting another soul. For that you need to always speak or act with respect and kindness.
Repair, quickly, any wrong you do inadvertently to any soul. To be able to do this, you need wisdom, humility and a normally sized ego.
Finally, bring a bit of joy, or happiness, or at least peace of mind to the souls you care about (including your own soul) without contradicting 1. or 2. This is the most difficult part and this is where most of us fail…
For now, let us not worry too much about the third rule, or make it the excuse for not applying the first and second rules. Leave that third rule for when we are getting closer to the ideal world and let us all get on applying rule 1 and 2. They are within the reach of anyone with a shred of care in them.
So, in conclusion, you are left with one question to ask yourself: “do you genuinely care about anyone else than you?” If yes, then you know what to do …