I used to wonder about the civilized world. Wondering bemused into a virtual world and you wonder at the value system. Don’t get me wrong, I like a lot of what I have seen. You know there are times when you suspect that your uncomprehending look at some of the things could be the reason you wonder if you would ever get the hang of the civilized world.
They saved us from ourselves and showed us how to help each other yes? Okay, I could buy into that, but I am completely puzzled by our greed for the trivial, the mundane. It is like this, for quite a while I read and watched the hype to the fight of the century as it was dubbed between Floyd Mayweather and The Filipino congressman, Manny. Can’t get the spelling right, so I don’t want to disrespect him. Manny caught my interest because I saw him as a man using his fists to help his people. Floyd on the other hand leaves me worried.
There is hype about how Floyd uses his money to help his friends and I hope complete strangers. The world however seemed to have received two riddles at the same time. Like in those Greek times, humanity was asked a question and I am not sure we heard the question let alone if we took time to answer it well.
At about the same time, Nature struck and slapped an Earthquake on us via Nepal. I watched fairly numbed as the death toll escalated and then as some kind of comedy relief, the supposed fight of the century. Floyd made another hundred million dollars and would probably pick up another rolls Royce, or whatever other toy. Those in his magic circle would probably get something too. A four month old baby survived the earthquake but would take his chances with the health and living standards of Nepal, it is not really Floyd’s problem. Heck he earned his dollars trying to bash Manny’s common sense out of him. These two gentlemen were egged on by others who paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to watch the supposed gentlemen beat sense out of each other.
I have never understood the rationale for justified violence. I never did comprehend the sport of wrestling and boxing and have always wondered at its rationale. Okay, we have African wrestling but my confusion is still the same. Why don’t we have a sport that help a fellow human being? Sometimes in our dim past, we took interest in helping each other.
There is a saying by our elders in my corner of the world, and it states very simply, that for as long as there is a poor unfortunate person in your family, the rich man can never lay claim to being truly rich, for he is the sore finger in your hand. One sore finger is the discomfort that keeps you awake.
By the same token, for as long as there is a desperate country in the world, the rich countries and their economy stand threatened. Human beings exist on the understanding of the fundamental rights and would therefore not heed imaginary boundaries and seek haven anywhere they can find it. That is why Italy and Europe is swamped by boatloads of desperation on daily basis. They drown, get sick, get shot but the tiny sliver of hope that they may survive, keeps them trying.
Maybe it is time, the rich nations start looking at that, hope. Every human being was born screaming for his own share of oxygen to stay alive, his own space, his own sun, and is programmed to search for the rationale of his existence, pushed to fulfill his definition of himself. Failure is a smell he does not want around him. No man known in history has ever had life mission to fail. Not the four month old baby pulled from the rubble of Nepal. Interestingly, the 101 year old man who made it out of that rubble was glad to be alive. He would like to stay alive as long as he can.
What is my point in all this?, just hoping somewhere that Floyd might postpone another Rolls Royce, and give a thought to that four month old baby. The cost of one RR, could change several lives. Might give a rationale to the official fisticuffs he enjoys.
Money and muscle should be balanced by common sense and a common understanding that we all are connected one way or the other.