I Wish We’d Known Less

How many times have we wanted to go back to the days we were on all fours? How many times have we been tormented by our present to have gotten us to a place we never foresaw? Remember those thoughts in isolation, when we only wanted to be kids and nothing else? Haven’t we wished to be beings with zero tension and zero stress? Why then do we continue to be forever demanding?

Some people say, “Man is a being of unparalleled powers; he can create what he dreams of.” Others proclaim, “We are here to grow; and change is inevitable.” Honestly, if man has the power to create what he dreamt of, then why don’t we create a tomorrow that is less stressful, more humane, less demanding and more peaceful? We reap the results of our own actions. We were unaware of the term – “mental health” a decade ago. Now that we know, we have gotten worse, we stress over every darn thing, presuming we have a mental health issue. Had we not witnessed the whole “mental health” revolution, we would have been a lot more merrier than we are – is what I think. Right now, we are constantly in conflict with our mental health. I was speaking with a kid recently – the kid exclaimed that their summer camp was taking a toll on their mental health. This is a kid. And this kid is stressed with the summer camp. Gosh! Of all things in the world – do we any longer know what we are doing? I thought summer camps were supposed to be fun and a time to make new friends and learn something that we needn’t have a prior skill to learn.

Now my concern is whether the summer camp was really stressful or was the child being overtly concerned about their mental health because they had heard the term somewhere OR is it that we are actually raising a generation where summer camp is also a chance to increase the IQ of a child and make him/her the next Elon Musk.

Let us shamefully agree to the fact – we have foolishly, unflinchingly donated ourselves to the capitalist conforms of the society. This has come to be called growth. I wish the kid had known less. Because had they known less they wouldn’t stress over being mentally burnt out, because they wouldn’t have known what burn out is.

Yes, I know what you are charging at me with: “Because we know that something called mental health exists, we are able to overcome the challenge of beating ourselves up.” Brothers and sisters, we just agreed to the fact that we are generation of fools who no longer know that we are suffering and need a third person to tell us that! Amen to your holy grails of conquering the world with all that you’ve got.

There are tribes in places like Andaman, where they are untouched by the so-called robustness of civilization and dignified culture. In their eyes, we are a bunch of fools who are running aimlessly, seeking happiness everywhere except within ourselves. While they are still hunting for food semi-nakedly, they go to sleep everyday satisfied and happy. What I infer is not that we go back to the early man’s era, but to simply be able to be happy. Did you realise that the last sentence read “be able to be happy”?

There is much that we can learn from nature. “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – this was told by a Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu who lived between the 6th and 4th century BCE. Why then are we hurrying? What for? To get our names imprinted on record books? But who made record books, and why do they exist? Most of all, aren’t records broken, and names forgotten?

Religion was unknown until a book was told to be followed that was based on the word of God. We were told, all our wishes would come true, and dreams would come alive. I wish I’d never known religion. I wish we never knew of a supreme power that no one’s ever seen – whom we so ardently adore, while ignoring the lesser fortunate, saying – “God has a purpose for that” or “God has a plan for you” when we’re sure that the person may die if not given a morsel of food. Yet, I am refractory to believe no God exists.

What a generation of fools humans have been! We cut all trees, and erected concrete skyscrapers and are now begging the current generation to make space for growing trees and increasing the green carpet. Could there be a better joke? We automated everything and are now blaming the lack of jobs for the youth. Dear fellow humans, I am a hypocrite, for tomorrow I will wake up to a day, where I will code for the automation based on the requirement. I am paid for it, and I will continue to do so, until I am paid for it. But the day after tomorrow if I see a notice that says: “people are wanted to move furniture” with a price quoted more than what I receive today, then I might jump to lifting furniture. Such is life. Such has become life.

Yours foolishly.