Whenever the world goes through a crisis, the first song everyone starts to sing is how the world has changed forever now, and how the world may never be the same again. That’s idle talk! That’s the expertise of humanity: shifting the blame and acting like victims. It’s us who has to change.
The world is much bigger than us. It’s so much more than just one species of thinking apes. It has always been so much more. Any crisis for humanity is but a smidge of turbulence for the planet humans so quickly claimed as their own. It has existed before us, and it will endure after us, and we have but this little time here.
I have always looked at any event, large or small, to be a better version of who I was before it. That was the only thing that made sense. A different circumstance, a new challenge required a different, a new side of myself. Any crisis, inner or external, is a call to action to go back to the notebook and to begin anew.
But for people, it is people doing what they do best: turning the narrative when they say, “the world will never be the same again” because now, they don’t need to be better; now, they just need to cope with this all too terrible world that has changed for, as per their narrative, the worse.
Inactive fools! The onus is on us; the onus was always on us. The world doesn’t give a shit about you or how you think it changed. Stop removing the responsibility, I say. I’ll rally it from my window instead of throwing a clap of applause every Sunday if need be. “Think more, think deeper!” I shall scream from the balcony. “Read more, read what you don’t agree with, and read it quietly!” I shall cry. “Get a reusable cup. Be kind. Help others. Let people off the leash, sometimes!” I shall yell. “Stop bickering and squabbling about undeserving Gods, alive or otherwise!” I shall riot.
The world doesn’t owe you shit, it never did; but you, you owe it everything; you always have. Be better, you fools, try and be better!”