Something to be grateful for

Are you tired of reading an endless supply of articles bemoaning the alleged dystopian reality we live in? Let us do something different this week. Let us look for something to be grateful for and try to count our blessings. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is no drill. You need gratitude in your life if you want to effect positive change in this world and, more importantly, keep your sanity. Mind is the fortress from which we attack all the negativity in the world. Lose it to the enemy, and the fight is over.

At the outset, let us not pretend that everything is hunky dory. It most certainly isn’t. But people who bring about positive change do not do so in a perfect world. Looking on the bright side of life gives you the courage, the motivation and the temperance to keep battling on. In fact, in the movie, A Series of Unfortunate Events, there is a direct parallel to what I am asking you to do. The recently orphaned Baudelaire children have just been handed over to Count Olaf, a mean-spirited villain who forces them to attend to countless menial chores. Yet, in the middle of the worst possible place, they put up a tent, create a sanctuary and pretend that they are back in the warm company of their parents. An oasis in the middle of an overwhelming drought and thirst helps by recharging your batteries and tuning your engine.

In Jostein Gaarder’s beautiful novel, Sophie’s World, there is an important question that, in my view, was at least partially responsible for the 2021 movie title Don’t Look Up. And it is a simple one. How often do we look up and appreciate the sky? You will hear many stories of people moving to the countryside because in cities they cannot see the sky clearly. But even there, they do not spare time to look up and bask in the splendour of an infinite universe. The infinity of time and space reminds you of the abundance out there waiting for human civilisation to exploit. And the sky offers a beautiful sight regardless of your vantage point.

There is something glorious about the gift of sense perception. The ability to see and hear things especially stands out. In my school days, Helen Keller’s Three Days to See was a part of the curriculum. Consider these lines: “I have often thought it would be a blessing if each human being were stricken blind and deaf for a few days at some time during his early adult life. Darkness would make him more appreciative of sight; silence would teach him the joys of sound. Now and then, I have tested my seeing friends to discover what they see. Recently I asked a friend, who had just returned from a long walk in the woods, what she had observed. ‘Nothing in particular,’ she replied. How was it possible, I asked myself, to walk for an hour through the woods and see nothing worthy of note? I, who cannot see, find hundreds of things to interest me through mere touch. I feel the delicate symmetry of a leaf. I pass my hands lovingly about the smooth skin of a silver birch, or the rough, shaggy bark of a pine. In spring, I touch the branches of trees hopefully in search of a bud, the first sign of awakening nature after her winter’s sleep. Occasionally, if I am very fortunate, I place my hand gently on a small tree and feel the happy quiver of a bird in full song. At times my heart cries out with longing to see all these things. If I can get so much pleasure from mere touch, how much more beauty must be revealed by sight?”

But we mortals, dear readers, are an ungrateful bunch. No wonder the biblical story of man’s expulsion from heaven reveals our true nature. Here is man in the perfect place custom-designed for him, and he still finds an excuse to rebel against monotony.

In the middle of all this talk of doom and gloom, have you ever stopped to think how lucky you are to escape the extinction-level tragedy of the Covid crisis? And here we are, billions of us who have survived this crisis, complaining about how we were forced to live indoors for long intervals against our will. If you are not convinced, ask the millions who lost their lives due to Covid. Oh, wait. You can’t because they are dead. These millions could be billions. Most of us, if not all of us. But the fact that you are alive means this is a kind universe, and it wants the human species to survive. All the elite we are sceptical of came together, pooled their resources, found a cure and inoculated the whole world. Whatever their motive, it worked, proving that something still works.

Speaking of a kind universe, another episode comes to mind. Remember the days when Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un were playing a game of nuclear chicken on Twitter? Well, one day, the residents of Hawaii received an emergency message about an impending missile strike. Within minutes, reports from North Korea’s neighbours confirmed that a projectile was indeed launched in that direction. But the missile never arrived. To my whimsical mind, it was as if some giant eraser had deleted it mid-course.

Mankind needs to be in survival mode. That is a given. From climate change, pandemic outbreaks, and bolts from the blue to the AI revolution, there is no shortage of existential challenges. In every faith and even in many secular movements, the number of accelerationists is increasing who want to bring a premature end to our civilisation. But we can endure as we have in the past by putting our best foot forward. Gratitude reorients our minds and shows us the way forward.

This is not going to be easy. This is not going to be simple. Humanity must thwart all negative impulses and think about its collective future. But given that we have made it so far, we can overcome these challenges too. This world was built to last. Compared to the universe’s age, mankind is still in its infancy. This infanticide has to stop. In the recent setback to the march of the far right, there is hope. All that humanity needs to do is collect all embers and turn them into a bonfire of hope.

You know there is enough suffering out there to drive even a passive observer mad. All our woes pale in comparison. The only thing many of us can do is to create a sanctuary and bring as many people in as we can. It doesn’t matter how fleeting the whole exercise is. Gratitude leads you to sharing and giving. As I often say, a better world is possible. Do you know why? Because you are in it. Smile.