We are at standstill: Life as if has stopped. First it was Wuhan. Then Italy, France, across Europe and slowly in UK and creeping all over the world. In some ways this is not a simpleton of a Chinese affair: The world is such a small place. There is no hiding place. Life as one knows it may be threatened. For the first time, one is forced into pause mood due to some real challenge: Survival will depend on how the world responds to this. Even with this being so, there is hardly much dialogue on how to move forward.
To be sure for the parochial, it is an opportunity to further lay the blame in some quarters where the subject is seen again not to be part of the mess but the other. It is always the other whereas one is free from all responsibility. Camus though in his imaginative celebrated novel ‘The Plague’ based on an imaginary village explored this aspect of arrogance where there was a shift from the egotistical where no one was spared to an ‘us-ness’ of being. Sadly, there seems to be some parallel which what is happening now. The point is each and everyone is affected whether one is in Wuhan, Milan, Paris or London or even in some remote non affected place in the world, one still feels it!
It is no long just a Chinese problem but one that the world has to face over. Not to do so may carry on causing havoc around as the emphasis has shifted from Wuhan to across Europe. We are all in it!
It is no longer an isolated concern affecting a group, a country or just a few. No longer an “I” thing but one where each one is faced with a simple fact. The idea that one may not be is no longer just a transcendental affair of concern to the few. It is a fact and at time of writing the idea that one may not be is real not a mere intellectual probe more so existential one.
For the rare few, this has always been so. From then onwards, it is always a question of how to be. Or what to do or not to do. For some it is business as usual and regardless of that dialectics as encountered, it is the same thing all over again. There is a further inward withdrawal where the brute self or its immediate extension is all that maters. It is me, me, still me and mine. That is why even in places where the wuhan effect has not quite reached in its ferocious way still people has resorted to leading a debased form of being which is apparent across Europe where some are into panic buying as if by doing so, all else will be fine.
Again, it is all a question about being no more but a victim of the ego as if one were to project such a way of living it is simply about the ego self or as I am all right who cares. In a way, one has not quite grasped the challenge ahead. Somehow, we have been made to pause and go in seclusion mode. Questions are being asked about life and its purpose. For once perhaps one is intentioned towards the aspect of how to be. The idea of one may not be is no longer something which just sages explore. It is a real concern to all of us.
The arrogant or so called those whose concern is merely for their petty selves, life is about a continuity of keep doing the same thing all over again in spite of the warning. Hatred and arrogance carry on. It seems that aspect of divisions is always all about us with no change in lifestyles. The superficial feels that things need to carry on as before. Yet there is a call to pause and reflect. Should one simply carry on as before and live the same way and lead an existence which fails to appreciate the other whether it is animate or inanimate. What else needs to happen to beware?
Is closing down of the system about the world not sufficient or is it that the challenge which started at Wuhan has not been quite assimilated nor appreciated?
Is it time to question what is most observable? A halt to our mode of living and consider alternatives? Are we ready to explore in authenticity or is it all based our idiosyncrasies? What is the way forward? Who knows what to do? Medical sciences are working to find an answer to ease suffering but again that takes time or is it by the time something is discovered, a great damage to what we do or should not do may have been done. For sure even the violent seems to have paused or their way of being was dependent on a smooth functioning way of life which is no longer the case.
Or is all lost? Is it so much a threat that one has to give in? What is the way forward? Or is just a media frenzy aspect in an age where news travel as fast as light? Whatever it is, seems that it is all about a case to be concerned at least given that all has been made to halt or forcefully be on a pause mode. Whereas if done voluntarily, the aspect of reflection follows swiftly and there is an appetite which follows to scrutinise all things about us based on a more proactive mode of being. Yet the tendency to remain reactive is always part and parcel of the super way of living. Based on a mere bodily way the tendency is to ignore the warning. It is to move along a way of further withdrawal into a ghetto of me-ism meaning mere reactionary ways are used to carry on along the fragmented mode.
The way of the reactionary can not be clearer: All about oneself whilst the other is the cause of it all and if not the cause, then let’s try and simply veil the self: The argument against such proposals is that precisely because of this way of being perhaps some may say that nature is having a go at humanoids asking us to not only pause but go on a reflective mode which looks at the question of how to be. It is also clear that even in this current climate there have been insufficient comprehensive dialogues about how to face up to the challenge. It is all being left to a particular nation state to decide. Or does it all demand more cooperation and being together rather than separateness? And perhaps more importantly is a call to change our way of lifestyle?