I'm starting to believe that the key of happiness is "ignorance" because whenever we care we always end up in sadness. Injustice, poverty, crime, war and a lot of sad things are all over the world right now, they are not only in action and drama movies. People are killing each other over drugs and stupid "ism"(including nationalism), making "great" destructive weapon for war, living in a poor environment and dying from hunger, etc.
When did we stop to care? The answer is easy, It happened when the law was created to protect us from those people who suffer, to make us feel easy because it's not our fault. The law also protect the big corporations from us, the wealthy from the poor, the strong country from the weak one.
There are two kind of bad ignorance that we are comfortable with.
1. We ignore our feeling and stand for the bad law, we say "every illegal thing is bad and legal means the right thing". I called this "status quo ignorance" because we don't want to change the thing we are already comfortable with.
2. We ignore those people who are suffering from injustice because we think they are not our problem. This ignorance is a dangerous proliferation of the first ignorance.
If we look at Kompas this morning, we'll say it's just the news. But if we look closely we'll find out about how the media tell us of how to handle things. The headline and big picture are always about football, entertainments and gossips. But there is, however, a small column about people in Mesuji suffering because the law is not on their side, soon we will forget about them. So the news tells us to ignore.
Slum area in Jakarta
How can the wealthy people in Jakarta enjoying good meals, sleeping on comfortable beds and driving good cars while not far away from them people living in slums area? Because the law said the poors are not their responsibility. The wealthy could enjoy their life because they ignore them.
The thing is, this is not only happen in our country. We can find slum area around the world, especially in the developing country with a large people living in urban area.
Street child in Bangladesh
Dalit in India
The most ironic thing about these poor people is most of them have accepted their sad life as a normal thing because they don't have any means or power to change it. I never know any of these poor people doing strike, demanding equality or asking to be protected socially by law. They will never do it, they don't have enough education to understand where they are standing. Let alone education, they only live to stay alive, to get anything they can eat for the day. The most extreme example of this kind of people is Dalit(untouchable caste) people in India. They and the society believe that they are meant to suffer and stay poor, even touching them is a sin.
Just because something is normal, doesn't mean that there is nothing wrong. War was a normal thing, still is, slavery was a normal thing, people sacrifice was normal, but those are wrong. Right now, extreme inequality is normal, poverty is normal, sending thousands troops to destroy a nation is normal, even killing an innocent 15 years old boy is normal for some people.
Jeremy Morlock poses with the body of an Afghan boy named Gulmuddin(15 years old Farmer) immediately after the boy was killed(2010).
Caused by drought in Somali 2011
A mother with her sick baby at Abu Shouk IDP camp (Caused by Sudan Conflict)
I can continue with a lot of sad pictures, including polluted water, polluted land, polluted air, that we consider as normal things because it happen a lot. These are our product, the product of our civilization. There is no one to be blamed because we never consider this as a wrong thing. For small number of people, these are wrong but not for us, the big community.
If we think about everything comprehensively, it doesn't have to be this way. We can end these sad things easily with every resource we have. One of the expensive war tools can be used to help millions of people suffering from drought in Kenya and Somalia. Indonesia military budged, although it is small compare with some other countries, can be used to clean every dirty corner of the country and build cheap housing for poor people. The "big country" of America will argue with a statement that begin with "It's not that simple" and prefer to start a war that lead to more destruction and sadness of course.
Well, actually it is that simple if we can stop betraying our heart, read the small column and ignore our favorite football team. We don't need to do anything, we just need to stop ignoring something and stop paying attention to some other thing. War is a respond to the community demand as well as media coverage, corporate and government transparency, poverty, justice, etc. If you start caring about the small column of the news and ignore you favorite football team, soon the small column will become a headline and the budged for your favorite team player will go to the poor people if everybody follow you. US will never bully the small nations if the people in the country against bullying.
But wait... we don't care, right? Why we want to think about these sad things if we can enjoy fancy dinner at an expensive place! Ignorance is our nature. It is the origin of all kind of carnage and far more dangerous than any other "ism" which caused a lot of tragedy.
When did we stop to care? The answer is easy, It happened when the law was created to protect us from those people who suffer, to make us feel easy because it's not our fault. The law also protect the big corporations from us, the wealthy from the poor, the strong country from the weak one.
There are two kind of bad ignorance that we are comfortable with.
1. We ignore our feeling and stand for the bad law, we say "every illegal thing is bad and legal means the right thing". I called this "status quo ignorance" because we don't want to change the thing we are already comfortable with.
2. We ignore those people who are suffering from injustice because we think they are not our problem. This ignorance is a dangerous proliferation of the first ignorance.
Today's Kompas
If we look at Kompas this morning, we'll say it's just the news. But if we look closely we'll find out about how the media tell us of how to handle things. The headline and big picture are always about football, entertainments and gossips. But there is, however, a small column about people in Mesuji suffering because the law is not on their side, soon we will forget about them. So the news tells us to ignore.
Slum area in Jakarta
How can the wealthy people in Jakarta enjoying good meals, sleeping on comfortable beds and driving good cars while not far away from them people living in slums area? Because the law said the poors are not their responsibility. The wealthy could enjoy their life because they ignore them.
The thing is, this is not only happen in our country. We can find slum area around the world, especially in the developing country with a large people living in urban area.
Street child in Bangladesh
Dalit in India
The most ironic thing about these poor people is most of them have accepted their sad life as a normal thing because they don't have any means or power to change it. I never know any of these poor people doing strike, demanding equality or asking to be protected socially by law. They will never do it, they don't have enough education to understand where they are standing. Let alone education, they only live to stay alive, to get anything they can eat for the day. The most extreme example of this kind of people is Dalit(untouchable caste) people in India. They and the society believe that they are meant to suffer and stay poor, even touching them is a sin.
Just because something is normal, doesn't mean that there is nothing wrong. War was a normal thing, still is, slavery was a normal thing, people sacrifice was normal, but those are wrong. Right now, extreme inequality is normal, poverty is normal, sending thousands troops to destroy a nation is normal, even killing an innocent 15 years old boy is normal for some people.
Jeremy Morlock poses with the body of an Afghan boy named Gulmuddin(15 years old Farmer) immediately after the boy was killed(2010).
Caused by drought in Somali 2011
A mother with her sick baby at Abu Shouk IDP camp (Caused by Sudan Conflict)
I can continue with a lot of sad pictures, including polluted water, polluted land, polluted air, that we consider as normal things because it happen a lot. These are our product, the product of our civilization. There is no one to be blamed because we never consider this as a wrong thing. For small number of people, these are wrong but not for us, the big community.
If we think about everything comprehensively, it doesn't have to be this way. We can end these sad things easily with every resource we have. One of the expensive war tools can be used to help millions of people suffering from drought in Kenya and Somalia. Indonesia military budged, although it is small compare with some other countries, can be used to clean every dirty corner of the country and build cheap housing for poor people. The "big country" of America will argue with a statement that begin with "It's not that simple" and prefer to start a war that lead to more destruction and sadness of course.
Well, actually it is that simple if we can stop betraying our heart, read the small column and ignore our favorite football team. We don't need to do anything, we just need to stop ignoring something and stop paying attention to some other thing. War is a respond to the community demand as well as media coverage, corporate and government transparency, poverty, justice, etc. If you start caring about the small column of the news and ignore you favorite football team, soon the small column will become a headline and the budged for your favorite team player will go to the poor people if everybody follow you. US will never bully the small nations if the people in the country against bullying.
But wait... we don't care, right? Why we want to think about these sad things if we can enjoy fancy dinner at an expensive place! Ignorance is our nature. It is the origin of all kind of carnage and far more dangerous than any other "ism" which caused a lot of tragedy.
I always remember Prof. The Houw Liong said to me at the personal discussion...'life would be harder if you questioning everything'...'especially with the god's concept'...he chose to believe it in order to get life easier...nothing to do with the truth it self...hehehe...so if we have 24 hours a day,we must allocate a number of hours to ignorance everything...at least forgetting about the truth concept...and lay solely upon our basic instinct of survival... :)
ReplyDeleteyeah, that might do.
ReplyDelete