Someone sent me the Amazon Prime Ad about the meeting between the priest and Imam which is here..
A dear friend asked me, ‘How did we become like this?’ …meaning, ‘How did we become so mechanical, bigoted, hatred driven?’
I answered, ‘That is because we have given up the world for others to run for us. We don’t meet neighbors any more. We watch TV instead.’ That may sound simplistic but the reality is that we don’t know people as ‘people’ any more. Our relationships are purely transactional. We don’t share our thoughts, fears, hopes, aspirations with others. We don’t laugh together. We laugh at each other. We don’t share in each other’s joy and sadness.
How then can we understand and appreciate one another. We need to change the way we live. In most cases, go back to how we used to live. In other cases, invent a new way to live where we relate to people as people. Not as labels.
We need to remember that we are human first. Everything else afterwards.
A simple question: In homes which have grandparents ask how many grand children spend time listening to them? Terrible waste of life experience and loneliness for the elderly.
We’ve lost the art of conversation and need to get it back urgently. We have no space in our lives for real people and meeting and talking to them without any material need. Just to meet and greet and talk. Our gadgets meant to make communication easy and free and social media which is meant to connect us to the rest of the world has actually enclosed us in sound proof capsules, isolated, lonely, desperate for contact; getting stressed if a reply doesn’t come in two seconds; forgetting that all we have to do is to go out and meet another person face to face to get full multimedia, instant response.
That’s why there’s stereotyping, prejudice and hatred. All breed like lice in the darkness of ignorance. We are a generation which has lots of information but very little if any, wisdom. We need to cure this sickness.
So now that you have reached this place – stop reading and go out and meet someone. Don’t call, don’t WhatsApp, don’t email, don’t do any of that. Go out and meet. Meet your family. Meet your friends. Meet even strangers. Greet. Smile and speak to them.
Will you do it?