Days planned out perfectly, we barely ever have time. But I will make time. I will put aside my reading for tomorrow for long enough to rant out angrily over the internet because there’s nothing else I can do. Everything will be just the way it was from tomorrow. We’ll think about the loss of these precious lives in the bombing today, we’ll feel sad for a second, and then get back to the assignment we had to finish.
I’m ashamed. Because even as I write this article, my emphasis isn’t on what I feel, it’s on making the article perfect so as to look good. We’re all so involved in our tiny useless lives, wanting to make a difference but putting off because we’re not old enough or strong enough. Well, people are dying. I don’t care about the agenda of whatever organization. Nothing gives anyone the right to take a human life. And the lives of ordinary people who were just at a park to enjoy. The lives of children who were the center of existence for their entire families. Children who had hopes and dreams. Innocent children and their parents.
A number in the media doesn’t come close to explaining the tragedy that has occurred, and keeps on occurring in Pakistan. And we all just sit here and think about it for a bit, then resume what we were doing. I’m not saying we’re bad people. I’m saying it is cruel what’s been done to us, how we’ve been desensitized to the tragedies occurring all around us, that we hold vigils to make ourselves feel less hopeless than we already do. Because, after the vigil, we can always get down to that essay we have to write or that book we have to read. But that doesn’t take away from the very real reality around us and how we really aren’t capable of contributing much.
Our self-indulgence sickens me. Iqbal said:
“Dard-e-dil ke wastay paida kia insan ko,
Warna ataa-at ke liyay kuch kam na thay karro-bayan.”
But we can’t do that because we don’t know how. Because we live in a system where we’re supposed to prioritize ourselves. YOLO (You Only Live Once). We’ve been trained this way; it’s not our fault. One of my favorite quotes from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy does an excellent job at expressing this:
“Reason discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
And there’s always an emphasis on being reasonable and not being emotional. I was brought up in a society where emotion equaled weakness. But I am tired of this pretense. Do we all not agree that our people are dying, and we’re doing nothing about it? Well, let’s do something about it. Anything. Let’s get a day off from school and travel around our cities and help people in whatever way we can. I don’t have any bright shiny ideas. But a lot of other people do. Let’s do something. Let’s restore our own faith in humanity. Let us put aside our goals of perfect grades and enjoying life to do something that matters. Let’s help people. Let’s, for one entire day, not think about ourselves and help others out in whatever way.
