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...a people grown soft with an easy planet... Frank Herbert - Dune
Reading this quote in the Frank Herbert book called Dune raised a number of questions in my mind. The first thing that came to mind was this question: do we need to pass through tough conditions in life to become tough or are some people just born tough and some weak?
The answer to this came to me while talking to people I know.
While discussing a certain point with a friend about how we as individuals should stand up against forces in power on our planet and their manipulation and exploitation of us and our country's/planet's resources, i learnt that my friend's views were very different from mine. At first I couldn't fathom as to why an educated and well informed person like my friend would take such a stand. My friend's views about standing up to such forces was very straightforward and the gist of it was this - what can i as one man do and why should i take the trouble of solving issues that affect thousands or millions. I am not strong enough to fight these forces and if I try, in the end, the loss will be mine. It is better to just look after your gains in life and move on.
I was really disturbed by these replies and tried to reason it out with him but to no avail. I thought to myself that this was an outlook of an immature and childish mind or that of one still on the verge of adulthood.
In the evening i called my mom to catch up with her and during the conversation we seemed to hit the exact same note as i did with my friend. To my surprise my mom expressed the exact same view as my friend but also repeated to me the same lines that my friend had proffered by way of explanation. My friend lives in Australia and my mom in India. The two have never crossed paths. These combined incidents led me back to the quote i read in the book Dune.
..a people grown soft with an easy planet... Frank Herbert - Dune
There is a lot of truth in this quote. All we need to do is substitute the word "planet" with "life."
People who have never really fought for anything -(maybe petty everyday issues) but nothing that meant their life or their freedom or their children or something that they truly loved - have lost their zeal and vigor. They go on living from one day to another with no real goal or aim but to survive and prosper in the material world. Spiritual gains are limited to offerings made to their religions/religious organizations and other rituals. Soothing their conscience translates to donating a small sum for some cause. But to go out and do some real work is something they cannot even begin to consider. Even if rare moments of inspiration generate a spark, they quickly smother by finding reasons to not do it.
This is not a problem limited to one family, one state or one country; this is something that has dug in deep and rooted itself in the psyches of generation after generation of our species, resulting in the belief that as an individual, I need to take care of myself and my family...the world can go and blow itself up, so long as it's in my neighbor's yard.
We all choose are paths. One is to sit back and observe and criticize but not lift a finger to oppose the actions of those who are causing harm. The other way is to fight against the current and choose to do something about such issues. Many people think that by choosing the latter they will lose everything, but by choosing option 1, there are no guarantees that you won't loose anything and everything eventually, if you allow a corrupt system to thrive.
"If you don't take a chance, you don't stand a chance."
Unknown.
