Coronavirus had done damages to the health and economy of the world and also opened our eyes (for those who want to see) to few things that we have lost over quite a long period of time in the name of economic growth and civilization. This is especially true in the Western Hemisphere where materialism is the engine of growth. The same is happening in the Eastern hemisphere, such as in China, and in India. Bangladesh has stepped into that bandwagon as well. I am looking into it through the lens of an American but it’s mostly same for all the countries that have embraces the materialistic life as the engine of economic growth and civilization.
1. We pretend that our life is so much certain that we often forget to appreciate that we actually control very little. Think about the COVID19. It’s just one virus that caused this much disruption. What if 10 or 20 viruses like this surface simultaneously? What if those 10 or 20 viruses are “true” airborne? What if the viruses don’t discriminate old vs. young and w/o preexisting health conditions? I remember once (almost a decade ago) I was giving a timeline for a software production delivery and told the manager that I am reasonably confident that we can make the date. I was pressed to answer in either “Yes” or “No” on whether the project production date would be met or not. I tried a lot to explain that there could be something that we don’t know yet (The Unknown Unknowns) but I was given a strange look as if I am an alien or crazy person talking Hebrew. We often see people touting “we control the destiny of our future” but do you know that we are just one massive asteroids away from the destruction of the earth? We were hit so many times in the history of earth and who knows when the next one would hit our loving earth? So far Jupiter and the asteroid belt are taking the hit for us. If you see the busy paths of commits, asteroids, and meteorites surrounding is you would appreciate that we are so lucky that we still exist.
2. Most Americans spend way more money and time that need or should be spent. We eat at least three times more than what we should to keep us alive and healthy. Consequently we then spend additional money and time to counter that over eating by going to gym for hours, medications and treatments related to overweight. We buy our houses much bigger than we can even use and work like slave to pay mortgages for rest of our meaningful lifespan. We decorate our homes with anything and everything that we see in the store and then we leave that house in every chances that we get for “vacationing”. If I tell my colleague that I am taking two weeks of vacation and going no where, I get a weird look as if I am wasting my precious time. How can I explain that I don’t get chance to live in the house that I am paying mortgage every month as we don’t even stay home in the weekend in the name of recharging for the next week. We spend thousands of dollars every year vacationing to counter that slave like pressure cooker job or business.
3. In America, most of the houses are bought with a 30 years mortgage which is a dangerous bondage where we spend most our youth and energetic life dreaming to pay off that mortgage. Our goal becomes to pay off the mortgage and then we would “happily” go for retirement at the age of 65 or 70. Yes, the society has successfully maintained the social “harmony” through that dream by putting us run into a rat-race and kept us happily dreaming for that “happy” pretentious retirement. Have we ever thought what we could do if we could sever us from that rat-race (like retirement but in the sense of not working to pay for the day to day living but work for the purpose of human’s life) early - enough early in young age so that we could use the energy and stamina of life to pursue the true purpose of life?
4. Most of Americans don’t save much for the uncertain future. I was listening to NPR radio and a person was telling that he had lost fortune in 2008 recession and now in the brink of another disaster. If I had fortune in 2008, shouldn’t I be planning for last 12 years, so that I can be somewhat need independent from the viscous capitalistic economic cycle: the cycle of boom and burst. I know this sounds crazy and irrational to some extent. That’s because we are looking at our current level of expenditure and doing the math on how much we would need to maintain our current status of living. Rather, shouldn’t we be rethinking our patterns of excess spending and trying to find a way to go back to modesty in spendings? When I used to earn one tenth of what I am making today, my ratio of need in relation to my earnings stayed somewhat constant. Why is that so unchanged? Because of our need that is endless. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be ambitious to do something breakthrough in our life with respect to education, knowledge, creativity, social impact but I am strictly taking about our level consumptions in the name of “living my life”.
5. The American dream is a term that’s been used and kept vague intentionally for decades. The wealth gaps between White and Blacks in the USA is a testament of the emptiness of that famous slogan. Some jokingly says that the American dream is to buy a single family home, have a green lawn with putting a white fence around it. Though that was not what it originally meant for but it now translated just into that. Otherwise, how come a White family in the current America would hold net worth of $170,000 and Black family would hold one tenth of a White family i.e. just $17,000. It’s actually stunning when you see that in Boston, Massachusetts the median net worth of average White American family is $247,000 compare to non-immigrant local Black family that holds just $8, yes it’s just “Eight US dollar”. That racial disparity was in full and vivid display where Black populations were disproportionately dying in Coronavirus (poor health condition, preexisting condition, lack of access to health care, etc.). The Black mortality rate is 2.7 times higher than the rate for Whites. This racial disparity didn’t change even after America had a Black president for 8 years. In Bangladesh, Pakistan and India - this social inequality is not by color but by two classes: people who have education and property vs. who have not. This is another thing that we often forget and having the economy shutting down longer wreaks havocs to that particular demography. During every economic downturns, rich becomes richer and poor becomes poorer.
Sooner or later, America, Bangladesh, and the world would be out of this crisis but would the world ever go back to state of humility, humbleness, and social equalities across classes and races? I doubt it would. We are all focused on how we can go back to normal - the normal that we are so used to enjoy with our self-centric dream. That life is so dear and near to most of us. Or, may be one day we will start dreaming for a different dream - a dream to return to innocence...I certainly am dreaming for that day, another day.
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