You live in a small world. You browse through Facebook and realize people in your friend-list overlap with your other friends. In your world, everyone seems to know everyone else. Your friend from college knows your friend from university, your friend from school is suddenly the best friend of your friend from college, the guy who you spend so much time with in college days, but suddenly had no contact with seems to have moved in with your university friends circle, the girl you had a crush on Facebook dates the guy you knew from college. The world is very small. It is very difficult to go to a public event and not meet someone you know. You go to a concert, you meet an old friend, you go to a religious sermon, you meet your relative, you go to TSC and the guy who sat beside you in college is there with his girl, you go to Cox's Bazar and somehow find the guy who lived next door to you in Bogura! Bangladesh has a population of 16 crores. If you find known people everywhere, then where are all these people? Is the world really small?
Well, no, your world is. Go out and see. There is always a new rickshawala driving you to university, have you asked where is he from? The restaurants you visit are frequently staffed with new faces, have you ever interacted with them? You seem to know everyone at TSC except for the beggars and homeless who lie on the streets. Every day you see people lining up behind trucks to get rations, do you know anyone? Travel to the countryside, do you know that farmer working in the field under this fiery sun? Do you know the vanwala who takes you from the bus stand to your village house? He seems to know your relatives but you have never heard about him. You take beautiful photos in the tea garden, but have you ever wondered which souls make this heavenly place? You go to Bandarban and stand in awe in front of tall mountains, and live in the huts of adibashis, but do you ever ask the locals if they enjoy your presence?
Take a break, have a ride, across the countryside, add the feelings of the stranger to your life, and realize that the small world is a creation of your mind. You look at social media and shuffle through the same people every day, people who suffer from the same disease as you, they turn blind eye to anything they can't envy, anything they can't relate to, anyone who doesn't match the same status as you, anyone who cannot go that same fancy restaurant, anyone who can't go on a tour with you or watch a movie with you on discord. You make your own cage, and people outside this cage don't exist. It is fine until this cage comes crashing down upon you. The cage is self-destructive, it is human nature to want change.
Well, it is acceptable for many, maybe even for you. Small world and small dreams, maybe that is the way you like it. But, once, maybe just once did you not think about escape? Don't you want to know how does the world feel outside this small cage? Don't you want to experience life in all of its wonders and all of its terror? Or have you chosen to spend your entire life, in this cycle of scrolling newsfeed and seeing people from your circle overlapping and saying, damn, this is a small, small world? Explore, explore the earth, experience other's lives, or at the bare minimum, have a minimum sense of decency and stop being cruel to the people you think are below your status.
Comments
Post a Comment