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Inequality and Injustice

How did the gross inequalities we encounter daily come about? Survival of the fittest? The reality is that if a person is born with more, he usually is closer to his dreams than one who isn’t. He does not have to be fitter than the rest. You and I may dream of a better job, a new car and a new house. There is a large part of humanity that dreams of food, shelter and good health, or has stopped dreaming of those things altogether, because they are too much to ask for. Will their children have a better chance? If we want equality and justice, we must offset nature and natural conditions. We must improve the natural conditions of the less fortunate. This is quite a straightforward idea but it simply has not been implemented because it is mainly the less fortunate who have almost doubled in the past centuries. And the rate of increase of world population itself is increasing (1930-1960, 1 billion increase; 1960-1999, 3 billion increase).

Don't these people know that they will have even less than what they have now if they proliferate as they are doing now? Don't they know that they deserve more? They know all that, better than we do. They know the stark realities of poverty, hunger and malnutrition. But they have gotten used to it. They have gotten used to living below human dignity. Most of them do not know how it is to be treated with basic human dignity. They simply don't know that they are entitled to better lives. Some of these people may get enlightened but they are too few, and it is often too late. Whatever they do for the good of their brethren is more than offset by the sheer cruelty of life itself. So the majority get used to their undignified, unfair, unremarkable and unwanted lives. It is the most pathetic thing in the world. When one of them dies a dog’s death, what is the point in crying over it, or feeling sorry, since they can do nothing about it. They simply cannot be sure that it isn't going to be their turn tomorrow. Being inhuman is their way of survival. They can only afford to be heartless and self-centered. Can those of us who have been treated with human dignity and better lives let this continue to happen and make more and more of humanity hopeless and pathetic? Ought we not to see that something has gone wrong, terribly wrong, somewhere, that we don't value human life the way it should be?

The majority of mankind has gotten used to living pathetically. Offspring born to them are going to live like them, probably worse. The roots of inequality will remain. The hopelessness and dispensability of the majority of mankind will remain. If we want to remove these, we should not allow those who have gotten used to an inhuman lifestyle to pass on a similar lifestyle to their offspring. They can have as many offspring as they desire and they can teach those offspring nothing but to live the pathetic life that they lived. The most heart-stopping event that happens in this process is the conversion of an innocent new human being, full of possibilities, talents, capabilities, possessing a right to a good life and to the best that humanity has to offer, into a creature that can hardly be called a human being. His or her transformation from human to inhuman is what we must stop. This has to be our greatest cause for concern.

Did they have a choice? No. They were told: “This is all we have for you. This is how people are supposed to live. You are like us, you are one of us, and you don't have a right to anything else.” He was basically taught that living with unfair treatment, lack of opportunities and with less than human dignity was normal. He was taught that unfair treatment was fair. He was fooled into believing that inhuman treatment was all that he deserved. What is worse is that these already low and prevalent standards are becoming lower and more prevalent with pollution, overpopulation, unemployment, etc. on the one hand and with an increasing frequency of floods, famines, droughts, etc. on the other hand. What is much worse is that successive generations will be increasingly told that all this is normal, that it's all part of life. Isn't it crystal clear that life will continue to get harder for the majority of humankind unless future generations think that they deserve a better treatment? If we don't value a good quality life for our kind, the human kind, who else will? If not, future generations will be told that their horrid lives are normal. They will be told that life is supposed to be horrid. But we know how good life can be. And unless we ensure the goodness of life for future generations by stringent measures, we are not preserving the quality of life; we are letting it deteriorate. The way it has deteriorated for the majority of our kind.

What is needed is a conviction of the sense of fairness required in securing the right to all the best that can be had for every individual member of mankind. The conviction that it is not normal, that it is abnormal for the majority of mankind to get far less in terms of conveniences, technologies, opportunities and so on. It is abnormal for the majority of mankind to be cut off from enjoying the fruits of human progress, first and foremost of which is the high quality of living which a human deserves, especially when one such human being can do a whole lot more now than ever before. Every newborn member of humanity ought to be treated nobly, because he or she can do much more now than anyone ever before, thanks to human progress. What is generally thought to be the minimum standard of life is in reality much below minimum, because no one takes into account the factor of human progress. The lowest of human standards should mean, at the very least, good quality food, shelter and hygiene, freedom of expression, choice of work, a safe work environment and a high capacity to buy the latest technology. This may sound too impossible, but it is inhuman and unfair to make people toil for a lifetime for the capacity to buy the latest technology when there are those who can have it in the wink of an eye and hence be more efficient, productive and dominant over those who cannot.

If poverty was less widespread, we would have been more concerned about reducing it. But as is the case today, poverty is too widespread and trying to eliminate it looks like foolishness. Few care anymore. Even the poor are more or less resigned to their fate. They worry about their condition only when they hear and see how people in the developed countries live happy, wonderful lives of their choosing, with very few worries. Only then are they pinpricked out of their poverty-stricken existence. As a result, some of them aspire for better lives and some build up on the hatred towards those in developing countries. But most of the people continue to remain resigned to their fate. The hatred group has come into prominence over the past few years. They are called terrorists, and they like to kill the people who are better off than they are, on large scales, infuse terror into the prosperous public and ultimately breakup their feeling of security and destroy their wonderful lives, finally bringing them to live horrible lives similar to their own. Unless the whole world stands together as one in accepting a good standard of life as the norm, terrorism will prove too much to contain. It’s a case of overall balance. As long as there’s jealousy and hatred on one side, peace cannot be maintained on the other.

Why has technology not reduced poverty? Technology is not worth more than human life. Human life is worth more than technology. Let technology measure up to existing human needs before new human needs spring up, instead of human needs adjusting to what technology can offer or human dignity lowering to what technology can accommodate. Technology has never been able to catch up with the needs of an increasing human population. The more that technology provides, the more the people will multiply and there is never going to be a balance between the two. The majority of humankind has gotten used to living with too little. The moment technology and progress come to their aid, they feel like they can give vent to all those pent-up frustrations. They just want that moment when they can feel, think and believe that life has been good to them, even if it hasn't and revel in those moments for as long as they can. What happens later as a consequence matters much less to them. They have got used to the worst of life and they are not afraid of what lies ahead. They will always go back to what they are used to, what they are comfortable with. If we allow their offspring to get comfortable with a similar type of environment, we can be sure that they will be part of a multiplying section of humanity, always living in poverty and spreading the indignities and horrors that life has treated them with.

Comte, Spencer and Sumner, prominent sociological thinkers, were advocates of the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ theme, which is the theme that is largely followed in the world today. The idea that social struggle was the key to the future has resulted in the highly competitive economic system of today. This system, as we know, has brought us to the brink of disaster as much as it has helped us to enjoy the fruits of progress. In fact, this system has led us to overexploit some resources and neglect others, thus upsetting the balance of nature besides creating masses of poverty. ‘Survival of the fittest’ is an inadequate theme for us to follow. It has helped us reach great heights of progress for long. To sustain it, the approach has to be self-sustainability. Life should be only as much as can be sustained. Laws preventing unsustainable life is the only hope of humanity.

This is heaven. You are in heaven. Or you can buy heaven for yourself. The best of human ingenuity and progress is quite within your reach. I know that the majority of mankind is not amongst you. They are not in your class. Good Food. Good Climate. Good technology. You are in heaven. I cannot, honestly cannot imagine a higher state of existence. It’s all in your reach. Just this simple state of living is what you and I have to extend to the reach of the rest of mankind. To them, they who are more in number, more in suffering, more in pain and agony. If we secure, we can feel safe; we can predict the outcome. We secure our roads, our houses, and our future. Why don’t we apply this security principle on a broader scale to secure and protect something that’s much more in need of being secured? And what could that be! Secure ourselves. Secure our future rights before we are born. So here is the truth: A perfect world and a perfect life for everyone is one of the easiest and most natural things that mankind can achieve. It is what must be achieved.

The complete truth is: Poverty and suffering is kept in existence by societal codes of behavior and conduct. These codes tell people that helping the poor will put them in the right with God. And so the poor remain so that the rich can put themselves ‘in the right’ with God. If we are going to help the poor so as to erase the suffering and disparity, the poor will remain because they are hence nurtured by society. India is such a strong example. Helping the poor is such a strong concept here that the poor have always remained strong in numbers. Always. We know that life is not perfect. Now we know why it is not. We know that whatever “-ism” we follow, it just doesn’t deliver on its promises or on what we expect of it. The answer is simple. Humanity has to take full responsibility regarding its own destiny. We have to frame better laws. We have to stop depending on ideologies that just don’t deliver. We have to stop thinking that God is taking care of us. No one is taking care of anyone. The better-equipped ones and the more self-centered ones are the ones who get along and in many cases the only ones who manage to survive.

The ultimate argument of culture and society for giving us rules and regulations is: ‘it’s for your own good.’ If a person has enough money to live well for a good number of years, then the threat to survival is reduced and hence the need to follow rules and regulations laid down by society to ensure self-survival is reduced, too. Therefore, money does give immunity against the forces of culture by eliminating the need to follow rules and regulations of society. Rules of society ought to be obeyed, but the need to obey these rules for simple survival should not be too great. Nor should the rules be too inhibitive and stifling regarding human nature and self-expression. In every country, it is often the poorest of the poor who find the rules toughest to obey. All societies are inhibitive in varying proportions. While communism and dictatorship are regarded unacceptable, forms of capitalism in the U.S.A and Europe are regarded acceptable. Rules laid down in all these places do inhibit a lot of humans from growing up to their full potential or having a fair share of life. Even the unacceptable features of today’s democracies ought to be removed if we want a fairer, more just world. We have devised many schemes to protect the poor, but they have not been really successful. Anyone weak is entitled to protection. Protection that they most often do not get. Hence, all the weak cannot be protected. We could make everyone weak by restricting everyone in some way or other. Alternatively, we could make everyone strong. Let us identify the factors that make people weak. What are we waiting for? The diseases that cause humans to be weak are not cancer or heart disease. We know what it is already. It is a hot climate, a suppressive environment and culture, and a lack of money to conquer those conditions. Not preventing the birth of humans into these conditions means not checking the spread of the diseases that make humanity weak.

How far have you reached in life? Do you have your dream job, drive your dream car and live your dream life? Dreams are seldom reality. But you keep trying to make your dreams reality. That is why you do whatever you do, everyday, whether you like it or not. But at every moment that you are toiling for that dream job, car or life, somebody is enjoying that very job, driving that very car or living that very life. Why? He was born with a whole lot more than you were. You are taught that you have to toil to make your dreams reality while he is taught that good things are a part of life. Does it seem fair? The farther your dreams are from reality, the farther your children’s dreams will be from reality. Not that their dreams are different, but because their reality will be more competitive and harsher. If your dreams ever come true, it will be usually at the expense of your children’s dreams. Or you will have to give up your dreams so that your children’s dreams come true.

Why is there so much suffering in the world? Why so many disparities? The answer is simple. We do not care enough to make a real difference. All we care about is what rewards God will give us or the fame that will come to us or the gratitude of those we help or just for the sake of keeping tradition or some other selfish reason. All this is hard work. The easy work is to strike at the very roots of disparity and suffering. But we don’t even think about and find out the roots because we would be opposed by those who seek fame, gratitude, acceptance in society and other selfish things through the pretence of helping the poor and the suffering. The poor must exist to satisfy their ego and selfishness. This is similar to the truth expressed by the proverb: Where there is forward motion, there is turbulence. The other reason why we cannot or do not find out and strike at the roots is that we have been conditioned to believe that it is close to impossible by society. Society people often do ‘good’ and ‘charitable’ deeds only to fulfill their selfish desires. Selfishness is the root of all suffering. It can also be the root of all good. Though the former has been said through the ages, it is not the complete truth.

It is hard for people who live carefree lives to imagine how it is like for the majority of human beings who have to live otherwise. The sheer hopelessness into which a human being is born today is something we can choose to forget. But it is there as inescapable reality for the masses. They have no one to turn to. They cannot understand why they are treated so badly by life. To quell those thoughts, a culture and tradition has sprung up, centuries ago, around the place they lived, which told them, and previous generations, to accept the hardships of life as normal. That authority should not be questioned. Without a tradition or culture such as this, human beings would not survive in that region as a race.

It is a very disturbing thought that people often do horrible things for money. But it is also quite true that only the rich get what a human being deserves from life. What does a human really deserve? It is not just one or two unfair strokes in life, but a uniformly unfair life by which a person dies bit by bit. Let's face it: Everyone of us bears the brunt of everyday life, wearing out bit by bit each day. The richer you are, the lesser you have to wear out each day. The longer and better your life would be. People dying like animals on the street ... People living like kings on the same street ... What disparity! Something has gone terribly wrong with our value system. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor has never worked, but somehow that is what most existing systems aim to do. Will it ever work? Aren't we taking a little too much liberty with the lives of the rich as well as the poor? We cannot help regulating people. The few who get what they deserve as a human being, i.e., a reasonably fair treatment are either living in a rich society or living corruptibly in a poor one. Since the majority live in poor societies, the majority of those whom life treats fairly tend to be corrupt. Such is the state of humanity. It gets harder each day to live righteously. More and more of mankind become dispensable each day as technology grows exponentially. There is lesser and lesser dirty work that has to be done by humans. But accordingly, human population has to come down. But since the opposite is happening, mankind is pulled in two opposite directions, that of technology and efficiency and that of old-fashionedness and inefficiency.

Bringing down the cost of goods will only result in low quality goods. Focusing on a few special categories of goods will only make the government and people debt-ridden. In such situations, people escape from reality in many ways. Alcohol, drugs, illicit sex, etc. are examples. Even religion. Why are underdeveloped countries so religious? Religion is more an escape from reality than a free choice of faith. It is also a means to discipline a population uncontrollable in many ways. It is the only solace of the poorest. At least God, they feel, think and believe, will be fair to them. Even if life isn't. Religion says: “Those who enjoy life on earth will suffer after death in hell. Those who suffer here will enjoy life after death.” Most people interpret religion in this manner. It’s confusing. To be honest: Why do we have all the facilities to make life better and then why do we hesitate to enjoy what we have and then why do we propagate ourselves and make all the progress we have achieved worthless? We progress and then we make that progress futile. We progress again and again we make that progress futile. WHY? We progress when we feel sad about our conditions to the extent that even religion says we ought to live well. When we therefore begin to progress and achieve living conditions close to heaven on earth, Religion changes it’s stance. Listen to me: Religion changes it’s stance. Religion, the solid everlasting, infallible, truthful, dependable entity that it claims to be, changes its stance. What stance does it take? It now says, you know what it is: that those who suffer here will have eternal joyful lives in heaven and those who enjoy life here will suffer in hell. The progress rate slows, besides that the population increases because religion accepts sexual pleasure as right. Take notice! It hardly accepts any other pleasure as right. See the tactics of religion! Why did religion change its stance? If there is heaven on earth, then what good is religion? If mankind is perfectly happy here, then they are less desirous of being in heaven after death, and consequently less inclined towards religion. To make life harder and not easier is therefore, in the interest of religion.

Instead of thinking as a nation, that we might be lucky if we strike oil or lucky if we strike gold… Lucky if World Bank loans, or lucky if MNC’s invest in us or lucky if the value of our currency goes up or lucky if the monsoon is in our favor or lucky if the rains were good this year... Lucky if we got a good minister/governor or lucky if the tourists were in good numbers – let us instead give more value to every human being. The life of no human being should be at the mercy of any of these factors, however promising. Let us bring a human being into this world when there is not just enough for his survival but also for his growth and productivity. The emphasis of most nations today is on the survival of its people rather than availability of opportunities for the proper growth and maximum productivity of every newborn child. Is it there or not? If it is not there, won’t the child be denied equal opportunities such as proper schooling, proper nutrition, choice of work and so on?

Let us reach for the stars so that we may at least touch the treetops. The situation is so bad in today’s world that unemployment, poverty and ignorance are considered as permanent features of any society. Think of the innocence of the child. Think of how he did not even ask for a life, to be born, much less into the maltreatment presently meted out to him. Think of how much he differs from those who were born into rich families. Or does he? He is just like them, only difference being the lack of money. While others were born with a lot of money in the bank or elsewhere, he was born with nothing, either in the bank or anywhere else. Is he only one person, an isolated case? No. 60% of the world lives below the poverty line. That’s 3.6 billion people who are suffering the same fate. The fact that escapes us is that more than 60% of the babies being born every second, minute, hour or day are born to these very people and are in all probability going to live out that very fate. If we at least begin to recognize this fact, we would suddenly feel the urgency in stopping this as quickly as possible. This catastrophe that is facing us and is continuing to face us without relent, is also the parent of many other disasters that we face today, foresee in the future and that alarm us, while we do not still see the real catastrophe causing all others. If we do see it, we would want to run for cover, so great are its implications. The grossness of the unequal treatment that is going to face one newborn child born every second into poverty, for the rest of his or her life will become absolutely incomprehensible. All this talk of poverty and suffering is sickening. Only if we would remove it all. Then, we would not have to talk about it again. Poverty could become an extinct word.

When humans are taught to live with less than what they need and deserve and don't know or think appropriate for themselves a better treatment, they usually don't think that their children need or deserve anything better. Nor can they do anything about it. They think it is okay to be treated unfairly and without dignity. They think it is okay for their children to be treated the same. This unfair treatment will not be acceptable to every one. A life of constant suppression at the bottom of society will build up resentment in their hearts. This resentment expresses itself as crime, communal disharmony, religious extremism and even overpopulation. We know of two examples in history when population increased dramatically after the people of a region experienced severe threats to their existence. One, the Great Leap Forward, a concentrated national development project in China in the 1950s, caused great losses of life and the people responded with a 3% annual population growth rate in 1963. The second one is a recent one; that of the Sept. 11 attacks. The following baby boom in the USA shows how people respond in general when they feel threatened. This sort of a threat is a constant factor in the lives of the poor. Their existence is threatened by poverty, government policy, inflation, and so on. These changes affect the poor more than anyone else. In such a scenario of existence, it is only normal for humans to multiply. The result will be that there won’t be enough even for survival, forget human dignity, forget equality of opportunities.

In short, unfair treatment leads to the buildup of resentment that expresses itself in the form of communal disharmony, religious extremism and overpopulation. Of these, overpopulation particularly causes more unfair treatment that keeps the whole cycle repeating over and over again, the byproducts being greater injustice and insecurity. Prevention, as they say, is better than cure. We don’t have to wipe away every tear from the face of every man and woman. They can do it by themselves. It’s the children who should not have to cry. Instead of wiping away tears, let us not let the tears come, then we won’t have to wipe them.

We know this: No one gets exactly what he or she deserves. Some people get more than they deserve while others get less than they deserve. Why? Luck? No. Not luck, but money. Being born with more, makes the person better equipped to snatch more than his share while the less equipped (less money) cannot do the snatching which consists of socially acceptable snatching. The poor, the less equipped and the ones born into poverty are all the one and the same. They cannot afford to do socially acceptable snatching. They are often not even equipped to do the socially unacceptable snatching either, but the rich manage even this type of snatching better than the poor, simply because they are better equipped for it. The poor amass. Finally, they do the worst and most unacceptable types of snatching and find themselves branded as criminals by society. All the while the real criminals pass off as not just normal people but as people worthy of admiration and respect just because they make snatching from society look respectable and right and can afford to do it that way. The person who can get his way is the person who seems right in the eyes of society but has bent its accepted norms and rules to the maximum possible extent. He is admired and respected. Is it right? It’s obvious that such people are closing their eyes to the rules and customs that others have to follow. Yet, instead of treating them for what they are, wretched thieves, we admire them … the way they speak, act and live, besides trying our best to imitate them as completely as possible.

Why aren’t we improving the state of the world? Let’s beware that there is always the danger that stagnation in human progress could mean degradation taking us in the direction of Stone Age. There is a Jewish proverb, which says that if you are not growing, you are actually becoming smaller. That seems to be quite true in the case of humanity. If we don’t progress, we may be quietly slipping towards our own doom. Either way, the present state of humanity clearly does not warrant any complacency on our part. The reluctance to act causes everything to remain in disarray. The reluctance to think is further reinforced by this state of disorder and disarray that one has to live in. The reluctance to give up superstition and blind faith is further reinforced by this reluctance to think. The reluctance to travel the path of progress is further reinforced by the reluctance to part with superstition. Therefore, reluctance towards advancement and progress begins with the climatic force, which initially causes the reluctance to act.

We often think that children live carefree lives. It’s true. Even in the slums, children are quite carefree, except when they’re dying of hunger, in which case they would be scarcely moving. Children are carefree because they want to enjoy whatever they’ve got and also because they are far less able to change their situation. We adults worry because we possess much more ability to transform and better our lives and most often are not able to use these abilities to the maximum. For all those who wish to be their best, I have this advice: Try being in a slightly cold climate and see yourself come alive. But that wont be enough. Proper food and shelter are also needed. For all these needs to be fulfilled, money is a must. If humans are not treated well they will only be trouble to themselves and to others. Everyone ignores the depth of unequal treatment in this world as long as it doesn’t concern him/her. It hits me sometimes but all I can do is groan and forget. Unequal treatment based on color is what hits me the most. It is worse in the less developed and less modern countries than in the developed ones. In the developed countries, they get to be treated like humans, at the least. In the underdeveloped countries, they cannot even be treated like human beings owing to lack of adequate resources, while the group considered superior gets to be treated like humans. Due to lack of money and resources, the unequal treatment gets aggravated in the developing countries, with the excluded group getting hardly anything at all in life.

When normal, healthy, thinking individuals improve the environment that they live in, in some way or other, they do it for everyone. Not just themselves. Those who are not normal, healthy or sensible also get the benefits of these improvements. As a result, they become better equipped only to spread and affect the world with their own abnormality, unhealthiness or stale thoughts. The very efforts to improve the lot of the less fortunate will not lead to the intended results because of the above given reason. Those who try to do good hence find themselves in a dilemma. If they do good, it ultimately leads to harm. If they don’t do good, their race is still headed towards doom. This dilemma exists in today’s world because progress is not aimed at the grassroots level of human life, i.e., childhood and because too many compromises are made on such efforts.

Only two types of groups exist in developing societies: the group considered ‘normal’ and the group considered ‘inferior.’ There is hardly any superior group. But there will be a few considered superior such as film stars and politicians who hardly accomplish anything at all of usefulness to their society, but are simply held in awe because of the way they talk, act and live. Why are there only two groups: normal and inferior? Here again the reason is that there is not enough for all. To be considered normal, the family you are born into, your color, your sex, etc. are what matters. All these are beyond your control and are pre-determined. Yet these are the very factors that society checks to decide whether a person can be considered normal or inferior. If you fail any of these checks, you go down to inferior status. In reality, you are normal if you are a human being and you are inferior if you act like an animal (break laws, abuse others, etc.) It is totally under your control. You choose to be inferior or normal. You can even choose to be superior if your acts are far better compared to either animals or humans. Yet, the choice is still yours. But in the developing society, being inferior is not your choice at all. You can do nothing about it if without acting in any inferior manner, you are still labeled as inferior at birth and throughout your life by everyone you know. This would lead to a denial of opportunities for growth in all spheres throughout your life. Consequently your productivity will be lower, which causes society members to reaffirm faith in their concept of who’s superior and who’s inferior, reinforcing the inferior status given to that particular color, gender, gender, community, etc., keeping that group forever in poverty and oblivion.

Is it really security that we are after? Life can end at any moment and by any cause. Once it is over, we do not know what happens. But if we go by what our senses tell us, once life is over, it is OVER. There is no more happiness or pleasure in life. Or maybe there is. We simply don’t know. Let's do something that will satisfy us in our lives - but can we always satisfy ourselves? That depends on our needs and desires as well as the capacities which nature has endowed us with to fulfill them. This capacity depends not so much on genetics and talents as much as in the facilities surrounding a person that will help him to do what he or she wishes to. If it is ensured that these facilities are present before his or her conception and consequent birth happens, then this individual can be said to have been fairly dealt by life. If not, the individual is faced with a bundle of lies and superstitions that try to fool him that life has been fair, these lies and superstitions being the very seeds sown in him which will later sprout, grow and turn him or her into one of the innumerable instruments propagating and maintaining in order the countless forms of camouflaged evils of all forms in society.

As the truth fades, it loses its attraction and is discarded. We, as a human race have not found the solution to global problems because we don’t like the craggy old truth. But however old, the truth doesn’t die, simply because it is the mountain peak in the landscape, forgotten because it is too familiar. But how much ever we ignore it, it will still be bigger and greater and immortal compared to us. It doesn’t interfere in our business. It doesn’t tell us when we’re right or wrong. It just stands there to remind us that if you’re great, it shows. If you’re right, it shows. If you’re wrong, it shows.

Nuclear Holocaust – Something that has shook up our perspective on life. We try to go on as before, but we know that we live in a world much changed. We don’t know when ‘IT’ will happen … if it will happen at all… At no point in time can we be completely certain that it will not happen. The world is full of injustices, inequalities and insecurities. Fool yourself and be happy. Everyone who claims to be happy has mastered the art of looking the other way. All of us want to be happy. We can either cleanup the world and be truly happy or we can master the art of looking the other way and be happy. I am sad because everyone of us has chosen the latter because we think it is easier. It is not. Ask yourself why happiness doesn’t last. Unhappiness spreads as contagiously as happiness does. Your happiness based on looking the other way will not last because the causes of unhappiness will affect you or those near to you at some point. At that point, if you continue to look the other way, the causes of unhappiness will start causing unhappiness. First, to those close to you, and then to you and there ends your happiness – yours and others’. The circle of happiness with you at the center and your contacts has shrunk to just you and then vanished when you became unhappy. If this hasn’t taught you a lesson, you will again start becoming happy by looking the other way, following quick fixes (the world is full of quick fixes) and spread the happiness to your contacts, who will in turn spread it to their contacts and your happiness circle grows in size. Until the next time. For, as you would readily agree with me, the world is full of causes for unhappiness. Globalization is being pursued as the end to all suffering for most people. But this also means for most people their happiness will be lost more often, because the outer periphery of contacts will be in touch with more contacts. Contacts having grimmer and harsher causes of unhappiness. If we are going to fight, happiness vs. unhappiness, happiness might win because most people prefer it, but it’s going to take a long, long time and because it’s a fight, the costs are going to be steep.

We have fought to secure equality, justice and harmony. But we have failed. We have a very sorry-looking history as a human race. There will be wretchedness and strife because that is the way of nature. That is our natural state. Human beings are not all the same. There are extremes of characters. Though intrinsically, man, like any other living creature will be good to those of his own species, when the need arises to fight for or defend one’s territory, loved ones, beliefs or one’s own life, his or her character turns unpleasant. We need to do this, as humans, on an increasingly frequent basis with the population explosion on the horizon. There is going to be a shortage of access to and availability of the resources needed for even basic survival in the developing countries while the developed countries will be more affected by a shortage of the resources needed for activities other than basic survival. So, there is going to be an ethical clash here. The developed countries will use the finite and rapidly vanishing natural resources to support activities other than basic survival, such as modern conveniences, industrial activity and scientific research while these very resources would be claimed by the developing countries for the basic survival of its teeming millions. Either the standard of living and the rate of scientific progress in the developed countries has to go down, or the teeming millions in the developing countries will have to suffer the neglect of their basic survival needs. The rate of scientific progress and the standard of living of the developed countries will have to decrease in accordance to the sustenance of the lives of millions of human beings in developing countries. It is already happening today. The true nature and cause of all kinds of international disputes, between developed and developing nations is this. It is the same universal principle. As quantity increases, quality decreases.

The problems of the world remain because people think that they are incapable of finding real solutions and pushing through for their implementation. We are afraid of the possibilities of bloodshed and revolutions. But listen! In this book has been presented a bloodless and potentially effective solution to all problems afflicting mankind. Further progress is not needed. Only extension of the fruits of progress is needed. That is what is intended. And that is what needs to be achieved. How can we just keep trying for more progress without first ensuring that the fruits of progress are reaching all? It’s like a train with no tracks to guide it, accelerating forever. Sooner or later, it is bound to hit some obstacle and destroy itself. Children should not be born into poverty because they cannot do anything about it. They cannot help but be adversely affected by a life of poverty. The future lies in the hands of children. If we give them a good life now, they will have fewer resentments and frustrations. They will be better able to control themselves, think rationally and act for the common good as well as for their own good. If we neglect them, they will be at the mercy of nature and society, which will not treat everyone equally, giving too much to some and too little to others. Nature cannot be trusted anymore because it runs the world on the principle of survival of the fittest which is always in clash with mankind's declared ideals of equality and justice. Man has the power to remove poverty from the face of the earth. Let us secure the future of humanity by securing the future of children. LET US SECURE THE CHILD!!!

For a Perfect World, this is what we have to do first: No compromises should be made on child well being. No child should be allowed to be born into an unhealthy environment. If possible, this should be made sure of even before the child’s parents are married. That is what I meant by no compromises. The human being is extremely valuable. Today, you and I will not be treated with the respect we deserve until and unless our forefathers thought of us as extremely valuable, worthy of careful handling and deserving of a healthy environment. We wouldn’t be normal, healthy, thinking individuals if no one saw to it that we were in environments that fostered healthiness, normality and intellectual growth.

A perfect society sounds like a dream. We have to start believing that dreams can become reality. But we have to start from the basics. We cannot hope to provide employment and opportunities for the youth if we cannot provide food and shelter for the baby child. We cannot hope for a crime-free society without first nipping off the buds of crime before they get a chance to form, i.e., preventing the very circumstances that promote and sow the seeds of crime. Do we want a perfect society or do we want the police to keep their hands full? Or are we afraid of change? Are we afraid that any existing institutions will be scrapped? Well then, if the answer is Yes, the next time something bad happens to any of our loved ones, we will be responsible for it at least partly, because maybe it wouldn’t have happened if we had tried to make the world a little more perfect. We did not do what we could to prevent the misery and hence we are partly responsible for bringing it upon ourselves or upon someone else. On the other hand, if we want to live in a perfect world and not just experience them in movies, let’s get busy plugging the holes in our current social systems. The large gaping holes that I’ve discussed are the ones that I consider as greatly meriting all our attention and efforts.

People forget their dreams and try to think of and adjust to reality. They say to others: “Forget your dreams; see how harsh and unrelenting the reality is.“ If reality is so harsh, then why do we keep bringing more humans into this world? Let us stop, make things better and then think of bringing more people into this world. Why do we give up so easily? Let’s make it happen. Let's not fight exclusively for animals. Lets not fight exclusively for the aged. Instead lets fight the cause of all these problems, the overpopulation on earth and consequent depletion of resources which has led to overexploitation of some resources and neglect of others as well as the scarcity and poverty facing humans. All we have to do is ensure that humans are not born when there are no sufficient resources for allowing them to be treated with equality, justice and fairness in all matters. Otherwise, we will continue to feel that our efforts hardly matter, which quite often is the truth.

The greatness of great people… Is it really greatness? True, they did the best they could with existing conditions and achieved what they wanted to. But it's only so in comparison with others. In comparison with others of their age and time, they probably got better food, shelter and healthier environments. I have done a study of great people and what I think is that they tried their best to make the minuses in their lives pluses. The few minuses. They had far more pluses than minuses. This inclination to make minuses pluses was an inborn trait, but that alone is not the cause of their greatness. Proper care in childhood is the most common factor in the childhoods of the great. Their basics were solid and tough, which is why deep inside they felt that they had something that could beat the odds. Simply put, their childhoods were better than others’ childhoods.

“Child is the gift of God to a family. To destroy the child is to destroy the presence of God in the world.” – Mother Theresa. The state of the world is such that the need to destroy children before they are born is greater now than ever before. Why? There is not enough for that child. There is not enough for more children each year. They either have to live with less or be killed, if their parents decide that their child should not live miserably (abortion). The child, therefore, is the basic block of mankind and his society. If the child is insecure, mankind is insecure and he can expect calamities, bewildering him one after the other, until he is completely destroyed.

It is only when the need arises, as now, that humans fight with each other, commit crime and destroy life and prosperity. Like any other species, we do not fight with or kill, the members of our own species unless we are absolutely driven to it. The crime, hatred, violence and discord among humans for centuries is supposed to be our natural state, but it is not. Sages and saints make it look even more so that peace and prosperity has to be striven for and is away from the easy reach of humanity. But we are so much more intrinsically peace-loving than we think, it’s not just due to external factors that our behavior takes a wrong turn, but also the centuries-old wrong perception that man is intrinsically evil. We become evil only when we are threatened. When our possessions are threatened. When our loved ones are threatened. When our beliefs are threatened. Or when such behavior becomes a habit and then a part of your character, which is the reason for most of the evil in the world. Unrelenting threats to survival of oneself or one’s social or personal necessities, mainly during childhood, causes a habitual response of fighting back, which then becomes an acquired part of your character, a part which then asserts itself even when there is no threat, causing you to appear as evil. We can become the most evil of all the people we know when our very life is threatened. Denial of the fulfillment of our basic needs is a form of threat to our very existence. Remove all threats to our survival, self-expression and happiness and we will live in peace and harmony. Let us be. Who we really were born as. Do not try to mould us into a pattern for that will only make us more harmful and not useful to society.

But we also know that man’s desire has no limits and in satisfying his desire, he harms other humans. The more humans there are, the more likely obstacles in his path, the more humans are harmed, because more humans would also be desirous of the same and would challenge him. Man’s desire can neither be completely extinguished nor satisfied. Either extreme is dangerous. To extinguish his desire completely would result in the extinguishing of his desire to live itself, making him inhuman and lifeless while satisfying desire completely would be impossible, and if seriously attempted, would cause either war and strife over natural resources or the depletion of natural resources, or both. Man’s desire is not to be extinguished or satisfied completely, but controlled. To be able to control one’s desires is possible only if one is knowledgeable. It is possible to be knowledgeable only if one is civilized. It is possible to be civilized only if one’s basic survival needs are fully met and never under threat. So, if we secure basic survival needs of all humans, freeing them from the animal pursuit of food and shelter and instead allowing them a civilized pursuit of knowledge and education, we would make them all knowledgeable enough to control their desires and therefore end the wretchedness and strife that has plagued humanity throughout its existence. Man can control his desire though knowledge but knowledge cannot come to him without being civilized, i.e., without transferring him from the animal pursuit of food and shelter to the civilized pursuit of knowledge and education through securing his basic survival needs.

What does a human do with his/her life? Enjoy a comfortable life, pursue one’s work of choice, keep trying to live a better and longer life and so on. Life is not comfortable always. Hardly does a person get the work of his choice. But we can keep trying to live a better and longer life. That is our personal progress. If we extend it to all humanity, then it is true progress. Shouldn’t we all be working towards it? – Personal or universal progress, if we are unhappy with either? Personal progress in the case of personal discontent and universal progress in the case of universal discontent. Nobody will say that they are content with the state of the world today. Any moment a catastrophe could occur, either manmade or natural. Such is the state today. Gradual progress towards doom is taking place as the environment is spinning out of control with storms, hurricanes, floods, heat waves, etc. becoming more common and causing more destruction each year. That wouldn’t be the case, if human progress was catching up and protecting us from environmental imbalances. That there is a way out if we seek out the true and simple reason or cause behind it all is something yet to enter the consciousness of mankind. That it is easy is my message. Simply make sure that no child is born if either natural or manmade environments affecting its survival cannot sustain it. This way that child will not be underfed/disregarded/disowned/disrespected/ignored/ unemployed/etc in any manner. Even half-hearted efforts in this direction would be enough to restore the earth and our societies to balance, because we would be striking at the root cause of it all. It is not impossible to make the world a better place, though. The root causes of most problems facing us can be narrowed down to a lack of resources and an unequal distribution of those resources. This can also be viewed as overpopulation – too many humans, too few resources. It seems that we have taken it for granted that the earth will never run out of a capacity to keep supporting more and more humans without going out of balance. This can also be viewed as an overconfidence of humanity in its ability to progress and find better and more efficient tools and machinery to sustain one and all. But what do we gain by simply sustaining more and more numbers of humans? Life does not get improved in any manner. The progress towards better living is stagnated, as progress will have to be directed towards sustaining ever-increasing larger numbers of humans rather than improving the lot of existing humans.

Envy and Hatred

The extent to which jealousy rules our world is often grossly underestimated. There is a lot of disparity. But forget about it (though it will still linger in your subconscious). Even when there is no disparity, envy exists on the basis of perceived disparities. Take the case of your own siblings. Suppose both you and your sibling were given the same gift. Same in size, color and features. Think of the ways that still exist for you to quarrel or envy. The other sibling got the gift first. The other sibling’s personal preference was considered in choosing the gift. The other sibling received the gift with love/ a smile. The other sibling would find the gift more useful. Even when both siblings got the same gift, they had perfectly valid reasons for envy. So envy exists. Now suppose all these causes for envy were considered and both siblings were allowed to choose a gift of their choice. Still there are reasons for envy: The other sibling had to wait for a shorter time to get the gift he/she had in mind compared to me who has waited for years. The other sibling knows where to choose what (has better information) and hence will end up with a better choice. The other sibling is in a better state of mind to better choose a gift. The other sibling can buy the gift of his/her dream with the available cash but you cannot. There are still more reasons. But what I am trying to show here is that we do not see the enormous power of envy in our lives. How much ever fairly we are treated, there is still room for perfectly valid reasons to envy the other person. Envy can lead to hate. This leads to violence and destruction. It’s as simple as that.

As we have seen, envy can spring up anywhere! It can end in violence and destruction. If so much envy exists in a fair and equal scenario, how much more envy will be existing in this vast and varied world with people of different age, sex, society, culture, race, nation, financial background, personal histories, jobs, interests, desires, thoughts, feelings, sorrows, needs, inclinations, education, local communities, religions, beliefs, … etc. There will be a million and more reasons for envy. In the case of age: ‘I should have had it at his age’ In the case of sex: ‘It’s a male suited gift’ In the case of society: ‘That society is too rich already.’ Between nations: ‘That nation has enough resources already.’ Financial background: ‘He’s been gifted all his life while I really deserve it.’ And so on… Sometimes the envy is justified. Often it is. Building upon it into hatred and consequent destruction is what happens on a global, national, state, society or family scenario.

Between individuals, small reasons for envy destroy the peace between them. You just have to be better looking or better fed or better clothed or better in any manner to evoke envy in the other person. All this happens often without your knowledge and when you sense the hatred building towards you, you have the feeling that something evil has been lurking in your friend’s mind. Something that even he may not be aware of. And he already has built up an arsenal of verbal hints and jabs ready to hurl at you. He even has a plan of action according to which he is sure to hit you, one way or the other: physically or psychologically. Often psychologically, but in more ways than one. His plan of action (POA) ensures that, when executed, his POA will hit you psychologically in as many areas as possible, if the hatred has built up to such an extent. Otherwise, he might just be content with hitting you once and he may not mind where exactly you have been hit. The funny part is: He may not even be aware that he is the strategist, overseer and executor of such a complex psychological warfare in which he seldom loses because of the absolute stealth involved. And this happens almost everywhere and at all times. Its scale depends on the magnitude of envy he feels. Almost everyone has a miniscule psychological war with almost everyone he or she knows. Often it is harmless. But it still has the potential to be a full blown psychological war. And from there, it is not very far to the real war nor is it any different from it.

The person is often not aware of the psychological warfare but pain makes him realize the real war. But the real war is not what should concern us, as is the case now. What we ought to be concerned with is the little psychological battles based on envy that we execute each day and carry forward to the next. More correctly, what we ought to be concerned with or recognize the potential of, is envy. Of how prevalently it exists. Of how easily it can spring up. Anywhere. Anyplace. And the consequent harm we do to others. If we don’t recognize it, our minds will continue to build arsenals of hints and jabs, strategies and plans, executing one after the other at the right place and the right time so as to inflict maximum damage and satisfy our envy. For the time being. The crude thing about envy is that it doesn’t end till the other person’s quality or possession that caused you to envy him/her is completely destroyed.

Envy destroys good, the destroyer thinking of nothing but the satiation of his envy. Even then, the envy doesn’t end, for as we have seen in the beginning, there is no dearth of reasons to envy anyone. You can envy anyone. From there, you can hate him. And from there, you can destroy him. Verbal jabs, undue criticism, spreading of false rumors and lies, persistent nagging, being a spoilsport and so on are the methods most commonly resorted to by most of us to destroy the person we envy. There is a lot of damage done, often irreversible because it is psychological and affects relationships.

Now, why do we start these psychological wars that do no good? Our own feelings of insecurity, our fears of being ignored, of being unappreciated … of being worthless, in short. It all springs from a sense of worthlessness. And how does this worthlessness feeling come about? When you do not receive the attention you need, when you are not given what your body and mind needs without repetitive asking for it. When you have to be loud and aggressive to get what you need or want. All this makes you feel WORTHLESS. When you have to be good looking to be taken seriously, when you have to accept group opinion and let it rule your life, when you are forced to discard you opinion because it is not popular, when you have to live your life the way others tell you to rather than the way you want to … All this makes you feel WORTHLESS. In short, when there is not enough in this world for you and when you have to be self centered, mean and heartless and grab what you want if you wish to survive. If there was enough for you in this world, you wouldn’t have to crave for attention, food, shelter, love, good looks, acceptance by the group, discard your beliefs and way of life to survive. It is the lack of resources (or money) that deprives you of attention, food, shelter, love, etc., and pressurizes you to be good looking, acceptable and submissive to the will of others, finally giving you a low sense of self-worth, making you feel worthless. Feelings of worthlessness lead to feelings of insecurity. One’s feeling that one is worthless automatically makes the person feel insecure, and feels prompted to protect/secure oneself, hence starting psychological warfare by stacking up verbal arsenal in our minds to protect/secure ourselves and sometimes preemptively. It is the source of every war fought in human history, not just the verbal arsenal used in the psychological warfare, but the feelings of insecurity that caused it.

As stated in the UN constitution, an end to all wars must begin with the human mind because it is in the minds of men that the defenses of warfare are constructed. Envy begins in the mind, but it was a feeling of worthlessness caused by a lack of resources that put it there. A lack of there not being enough for every human being born into this world is finally responsible for the massive power of envy continuing to rule our lives. Lack of resources (money) for every human being born will cause more envy and hence more wars, less peace, not just in the bedroom, but also in the battlefield. As a start, we can begin by preventing the birth of children into poverty. Let humans not be born into a lack of resources for their needs and survival. Let there be fewer reasons for envy. Life should be only as much as can be sustained. Laws preventing unsustainable life is the only hope of humanity. Preventing the birth of children into poverty will result in a far-reaching sweep-out of all evils affecting mankind and the removal of major obstacles in the path of his progress.

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