Lessons of Life: Kindness

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” –Dalai Lama

In his last lecture delivered at Carnegie Mellon, Randy Pausch shared an anecdote from his childhood: his sister and he bought a ten dollar salt shaker from Disneyland, which, in his excitement, he dropped and broke. The duo went back to the shop and told the seller about this incident. To their surprise and delight, the shop exchanged it for a new piece completely free of cost, and even said it was their fault they hadn’t packed it that well! They took the blame for the excitement of a ten-year old child.

Imagine the same scenario today. Would you get another piece? Would you give another item? I bet the answer is in negative.

In today’s fast-paced and materialistic world, kindness is just another lost art. While we pride ourselves on being scholars of mathematics and science, we lack the quality that makes people like us, in addition to respect. Since preschool we’re taught values, but how is it that in high school we forget the textbook of life while focusing on social studies and languages? Why is it that kindness isn’t used to measure a person, but instead their grades and interests decide their life?

Kindness doesn’t have to be donations to an organization; goodness starts at home. Help your mother in the kitchen, surprise your parents with a gift or even a card, ask your brother, “how was your day?” or just smile at a stranger you cross.

Instead of thinking ‘what’s in it for me?’ think of how you can make someone else’s day better– and that is kindness. And remember, no kind deed is ever wasted. When Randy told his parents about the saltshaker incident, they were so impressed that they made multiple trips to Disneyland thereafter, which generated about 1,00,000 dollars worth revenue for the theme park. Exchanging a ten dollar memento earned them a lakh more. A kind deed is all it took.

Naturally Unnatural

“Sometimes it takes a natural disaster to reveal a social disaster.”

–Jim Wallis

The word ‘natural’ is self-explanatory: derived from nature. But coming to disasters, it is a ‘sudden accident that causes great damage.’ This combination of words (natural disaster) is used to justify a number of casualties, but that’s the catch: casualties are caused by man, not nature.

While hazards can be considered a play of nature, catastrophes occur when a community isn’t prepared to cope with the impacts of a hazard. Consider this example: an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck Chile in February 2010, killing 562 people. Only a month earlier in Haiti, over 220,000 beings were wiped out, with another one and a half million being left homeless, from an earth tremor measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale. Same continent, same year, but vastly different results. Why, you ask? Because the former country was much better prepared to face such a ‘disaster.’

Poor infrastructure, lack of awareness and carelessness are the knives, but earthquakes, droughts, floods, cyclones aren’t the murderers- humans are.

Some may agree to disagree- you can’t do anything about floods washing away your house in the South Pacific Islands. A small territory surrounded by an endless ocean is undoubtedly at risk of being overcome by the vast water body. However, you can’t cut the head from the snake, so what causes inundation? It is crystal clear in the Antarctic- literally- that polar caps are melting, indeed questioning its title of the ‘land of eternal winter.’ Hence, it is the industrial carbon emissions that are leading to this global phenomenon. Ergo, isn’t it us homo sapiens who are ultimately responsible? Climate change is man-made, and while natural disasters aren’t, their impact definitely is.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects climate change to disrupt weather patters, leading to more refugees. It has been suggested that a one meter rise in sea level could mean 150 million people will be displaced. Agreed, there’s no panacea to the conundrum of this situation, but a multi-causal issue can only have an exponentially larger number of solutions. Natural disasters may not always be controllable, but our reaction to them needs to be.

In conclusion, to tackle the issue of climate refuge we need to cut the weed at its root. Climate change can’t be taken down like a terrorist, but we need to wage a war against it; we need to wage a war against, indeed, our own creation- before it’s too late.

A Climate Refugee's Diary Entry

I know I'm suddenly writing a lot about climate refugees, but they're people who need to be talked about, to be recognised, and to be protected.

November 12, 2040

Dear Diary,

Saying today was a long day is the understatement of the century. It feels as though I last woke up and got ready for school in another dimension, not 48 hours back.

A month ago, I distinctly remember, Papa’s friend, the farmer, gave an impassioned speech about how the wet and dry spells were ruining his crops. I mocked him then (Mamma mustn’t know this). Our family business is – was – involved in overseas trade, so I really didn’t care about what happened with the weather. But when the tornado hit a week back, that occupation got disrupted too — and so did my attitude.

However, now that I think of it, it’s almost funny the way we cowered below the giant wings of that grey beast. Yet, that seems like nothing compared to what happened today. Or maybe, it is the combined happenings of the past seven days that has left me this devastated.

The skies were clear, and the heavens bright. The weather remained the same till afternoon. As Ted Mosby said, ‘Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.’ I guess we’re in different time zones, so it’s safe to say, ‘nothing good happens after 2 p.m.’ Word.

I ran to the beach after school, and as I stood in my favorite spot – where a rather large number of my previous entries have been based – I realized it wasn’t my favorite anymore. No, the sea didn’t leave my feet asking for more; it left it fleeing to save itself. The water levels rose drastically and it now reached my waist. The sirens blared throughout the city — and I knew, oh I knew, it was the end.

So it came as no surprise when helicopters dropped ropes to save us. And as I sit on my bunk right now in a country far from home, with my parents arguing with the authorities right outside, mamma’s ‘strong boy’ can finally admit: I’m scared.

Stranded Thoughts

This is a short poem written from the perspective of a climate refugee.

Dear people across the sea,

How is the weather in your country?

Is it arid, or is it raining,

Or is it bright and sunny daily?

When you dig with your hands,

Do you find water beneath the land?

Is a little downpour the dart,

That tears your life apart?

Does a clear sky appear to you too

Like the calm before the storm?

Or is it only here that flooded surroundings

Have just become another norm?

I know you think we’re being paranoid,

So please know this:

We didn’t choose to be in a boat,

But our country is simply no more.