Quarantining Away
It’s quarantine season all over the world. Why you may ask? Well, you are in a serious need to wake up then. Of course, everyone knows why we are sitting at home. And although I do wanna talk about it, it’s emotionally consuming. But maybe I should, rather everyone should talk about their mental health in times like this. Because this is one thing that won’t discriminate you and me. Instead of still trying to find some sanity in our routines, trying to find purpose, trying to make ourselves occupied so that we don’t think about other things, like our mental health, our stress and anxiousness and other things.
It’s all fine. It’s good to be occupied. But have you ever wondered, what it is to have an empty mind? Some do obviously, but those who know, have we ever thought of teaching it to those who don’t? Maybe some don’t want to learn and that’s fine too. To each his own.
I don’t want to preach. Rather I don’t want to talk about how to make our quarantine worthwhile. I am here to rant (as always). I have personally felt that people could be a lot closer to nature while being home. Even when we are staying in our sky-high apartments or our cosy little home with gardens and trees in the backyard, we all share nature in some form that makes this experience of being close to nature, more comfortable, more community-like. When I am not reading (reading fifty shades for the fifth time I guess), watching Harry Potter (for the nth time), or doing the daily chores, I like to stand at my window. For the reason that I can at least imagine myself outside and also because we have trees around our place and trees means squirrels and crows and birds and butterflies and gentle breeze. Often, these squirrels have ran in and out of our home and I have always seen them from afar, scared creatures that they are. On many occasions I have tried imagining being a Disney princess to whom animals just flock to and also tried to be calm and quiet, wanting to approach them only so I could at least play with one. But I never did stay for long for them to actually come near. But anyway, I can do now, but now the squirrels don’t really come near much.
The other day, I saw a butterfly and I haven’t been a huge fan of insects all my life (still am not). But that day, I really wanted that butterfly to sit on my hand. I have never observed butterflies so closely. It had one wing a little broken I guess, but it was flying fine so maybe it was born like that. And although it did come closer many times and I still retracted a little, at least I was not ducking and getting creeped out. In my desperate attempt, I even put a little honey on my finger, but by the time I came back, the butterfly was gone. And then I licked the honey clean. Even though I have adjusted to quarantine,I often keep wondering about others. How other people might be doing. There’s a small hut overlooking from our home and I often see them going about their day. And I like what I see. They have a bird bath, they have built a bird feeder, they have hens and roosters and dogs and just how lucky I found them being in the open and quarantined. Maybe we could have been the same. Living amongst nature if we didn’t have buildings to call our homes. But then again, if we lived with the nature and not the nature living with us, maybe we wouldn’t need to be quarantined in the first place.
My next line of thought being, why the hell this happened? Some say it’s a way to achieve world domination and some say it’s just nature fighting back. If it’s the first one, what has the world come to and if it is the second, well, what has the world come to? What will happen if the world is in one community or country or whatever’s hand? The power, the fame will that make their lives worthwhile? Will they take it to their grave and die with a smile on their face? I think they will take everyone to their grave if this is what they want to achieve. Will they attain liberation?
Weren’t we supposed to live in harmony? Accept people the way they are, and if we cannot just fucking ignore and go about living our lives with like-minded people? Instead, we are wanting to finish what we don’t like. Why don’t we think that maybe someone else does? Power can be used to make lives better too, and that is more fun. That gives you a real sense of purpose at least. That with your power, with your money, you have made people’s lives better, instead of hoarding all the money and the resources and letting others be in misery. What is the point of singularity when we are a species of society, of community, of nature. We need others, we need resources and money is a part of nature, not one big fat man’s or woman alone. Working for the bigger man, instead of the greater good, some people are really so short-sighted. Have we closed our conscience to such extremes that there is no escaping for them? Why are we this way? One minute we are making fun of people panic buying, of people hoarding supplies and toilet paper, so why not talk about people who hoard money, who hoard resources and selling to the highest bidder who’s need is not even matching the resource. Think of this way, when we have a jet spray, why do you need the damn toilet paper. There are others in great need of them, they, by fairness, should have them and not someone who has other means of cleaning their damn asses ( I am not angry about toilet papers in general, it’s just a mean to explain).
People who have power, who have money, who very graciously donate for monuments and have graciously donated in these time of needs can do so all their lives. And some do, but it’s not all enough. Just money isn’t enough, money is just something that we have given a value greater than it is worth. Yes, it doesn’t hurt to live comfortably, but at what cost? Someone else isn’t. Unless you help others to achieve that too, will living comfortably be worth it? Will it be worth it at the cost of others? You work hard for it you say, yes you deserve the money and the power, but like it was said to Spider man, with great power comes great responsibility, so think of it that way. All the heroes chose to use their money, their power, in helping others, in saving others and then there are real-life heroes too. We all can learn from all this. The TV heroes are not discriminating while saving the planet, then why are we? I never mean to offend anyone.
All I do is rant, have conversations with myself about things like these. I think of all the movies, all the books; that in their reality, nobody is being harmed much. Well, not at least religion-wise or caste or creed or skin, and if they have, then I am glad I haven’t read or seen such movies. I am happily ignorant towards that then. But then on a greater scale, when I think of a future when I will have children, I only think about the world they will be living in, the questions which they will ask me about the world and why it is the way it is. And I hope that if that happens, I’ll want to tell them about the goodness of the people, about how in 2020, when nature wanted to revive herself, she shut us up in our rooms and we realised our mistakes and amended our ways, rather than how some people who wanted world domination messed us up.
We are the power, we together have the power, and like we have fought in the past for what was wrong, we can do it for a better future again. We need nature, nature doesn’t need us. And I hope, when we step out of our houses, we see a world that we want to live in and we make a world we want our children to live in. Where we were deprived, our children don’t, both physically and mentally. If anyone is offended, I am sorry wholeheartedly. But again, these are my opinions and although opinions tend to change, right now, this is it. Thank you. #stayhome #staysafe #wakeup
- Blog by Rtr.Diksha Mehta