Slayer society

Our society is fast creeping into the bottomless abyss of malignancy and degeneration. Exalted societal values of helpfulness, humanism and altruism that once formed the nucleus of our society have been evaporating over time. Egotism, apathy, unflinching gluttony, judgemental social psyche and discouraging conduct have been gaining ground. This systematic societal degeneration, armed with blood-thirsty tentacles and a suffocating social psyche, consumes the lives of many struggling souls. Amidst the social degeneration, taking one’s life appears easier for many wrestling with life than living it.

Though socially orchestrated suicides are frequent happenings, a heart-breaking incident of a student in Sindh speaks volumes about our collective societal demise. A mass communication student has recently committed suicide in Sindh and left a note that he penned well before this tragedy. The pages read that since he failed in all endeavours, he finds no reason to survive. More heart-wrenching, however, is the felicitation he offered to society for his departure from the temporal abode to the eternal one. Given our callous social psyche, only a conscientious few can imagine the excruciating torment and insufferable mental trauma he might have undergone before resorting to this extreme act. Though he has written that he alone shares responsibility for this mishap, there might be a cascade of untoward events and malignant social conduct systematically plotted against the victim by society.

Given the amazingly bittersweet texture of life, no one would voluntarily resort to this extreme act. Everyone regardless of one’s social and financial status comes across the blind tunnels of life. Everyone stumbles and tries to rehabilitate themselves. However, no one would dare to take one’s life because of hardships. In the face of obstacles, most dare to look passionately for light or ignite one.

Besides, the emotional attachment and sense of belongingness that one develops with family, friends, and peer groups since childhood is the strongest incentive for living life, regardless of challenges. Therefore, it isn’t always the failures or challenges one surrenders to death for. Most of the time, it is the spectators hurling discouraging and demoralising verbal assaults that force one to take this extreme step. We have been too selfish and materialist that we feel no qualms in pushing dragging others to the brink of death, let alone lending them a helping hand in distress.

The failures of students are terrifying not because they actually are, but because the degrading society finds in one’s failures the reason to mock and rejoice. To add fuel to agonies, they often compare someone’s failures with others’ success, no matter how manipulated or fixed, or without realising that no two people can have identical circumstances and destinations. When one’s struggle or failings in life get reciprocated by the dear ones with callousness, the victim becomes demoralised and loses worth in his/her own eyes, and resorts to suicide.

We as a society mock struggling students, not because we invest in their studies, share their pain or suffer losses, but because we have been infected with feeling eclectic gratification in downgrading others. Our society has stigmatised the word failure. Rather than appreciating struggle, we are more apt at making fun of others’ failures. What we always expect are affirmative outcomes, not for fair reasons though.

It’s the greatest irony that when we find one depressed or in a low mood, we add to their depression with our egoistic and satanic gossip. In a time when they need emotional support and hope to survive, we add to their worthlessness. In this way, we contribute to dragging the victim to the brink of death. We as a society rob them of their lives and stain our hands with the blood of the departed victim.

It is time we as a society acknowledge that suicide is not always conscious or voluntary taking of life, it is instead a murder systemically machinated against the victim by the surrounding. Therefore, we need to reform our individual and collective psyche from toxic to encouragingly enlightened one. Instead of infecting others with despair, we need to illuminate the gloomy thoroughfares of struggling souls.