Man has not changed his instincts
The writer is a senior analyst based in Hyderabad
American writer HP Lovecraft has said, “We must recognize the essential underlying savagery in the animal called man, and return to older and sounder principles of national life and defense. We must realize that man’s nature will remain the same so long as he remains man; that civilization is but a slight coverlet beneath which the dominant beast sleeps lightly and ever ready to awake.”
In the 1990s, there was a widely circulated photo of a vulture waiting for a starving little girl to die and feast on her corpse. That photo was taken during the 1993-94 famine in Sudan, by Kevin Carter, a South African photojournalist, who later won the Pulitzer Prize for this ‘amazing shot’. However, as Carter was savouring his feat and being celebrated on major news channels and networks worldwide for such an ‘exceptional photographic skill’, he lived just for a few months to enjoy his supposed achievement and fame, as he later got depressed and took his own life. Carter’s depression started when during one of such interviews (a phone-in programme), someone called in and asked him what happened to the little girl. He simply replied, “I didn’t wait to find out after this shot, as I had a flight to catch...” Then the caller said, “I put it to you that there were two vultures on that day, one had a camera”. Thus, his constant thought of that statement, later led to depression and he ultimately committed suicide.
Indian writer Mehendi Guha Roy writes, “We all have stories we don’t want to read out loud. Most of the times for the fear of being judged, and sometimes we know that people will think that the ‘pain’ ended in those four letters. But these untold stories grow with time and reach a point where we can’t even recognize the person we see in the mirror. Sometimes at night when the whole place shut silent, we question ourselves crawling into the bed and holding that unrecognizable face, ‘Who are you? You were never like this; you hated those things which you can’t live without nowadays… Can you ever be a normal human being? Answer me please’. But nobody spoke and the silence just got enhanced. With time we hate socializing, and people will say, ‘Why are you so boring?’ Huh… who will make them understand that we are struggling to breathe every countable seconds.”
Let’s try to understand the psychology of a man whom God has deprived of all the ability to think and understand. Such a man crushes humans and uses their injured bodies as ladders to move forward. And when he attains success and prosperity, one day the night of his life strikes him. He then starts searching for the light of life in the darkness of the stores of things around him. He injures himself again and again by bumping into the darkness. It is only then that he realizes that he has wasted his whole life for inanimate objects. The curse of those on whom he inflicted pain, suffering, grief and torture do not let him take any peace. They keep on taking their revenge by torturing him.
This story is not the story of our society, nor is it only today’s story. This story began when the first society was founded. In human history, such a person has come in the form of king, sometimes in the guise of landlord, dictator, sometimes in the guise of a capitalist and sometimes as a politician. From the very first day, man was inured to the fear of considering himself insecure. This fear forced him to collect everything in himself and the same fear is clinging badly to man till today. Today’s man has changed everything around him and, he has completely changed himself. But he is by no means ready to sever ties with his ancient past. It is a great misfortune that man has not changed his instincts. Man cannot get rid of suffering, selfishness and pain without killing his fear. This fear has made him suffer from all kinds of fear. How can he have salvation without killing his enemy? Because all tragedies around the world were born from it, all contradictions and differences arise because of this and it is this fear that causes man to become an animal.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 23rd, 2023.
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