Words that caught me: B is for 'What are you building?'
Imagine
for a moment that COVID-19 was a person,
A human
being like yourself – mind, body and spirit –
And
you happen to meet face to face in a street alley in town,
What would
you do?
“You
bow’, says Simone Cicero.
Why?
Because
it has been of great service to us
By exposing
awning gaps in all of us -
In the
way we live and conduct our daily lives,
In what
we busy ourselves doing and what we neglect to do,
In what
we believe in and what we think we know,
In our
deluded sense of control and safety,
In our
little understanding of the world and the meaning of our own existence in it.
It has
done us a hugely generous favour of awakening us.
No one
and nothing is left unscathed.
We thought
if we worked hard and hustled all day long
And all
night long, we’d be safe and secure. We aren’t.
We thought
we had the freedom to do everything
And anything
we wished. Now we know better.
We believed
we knew what we were doing
And that
we can control and manage the consequences
Of
our wayward ways. Now we laugh at our
ignorance and naivety.
We believed
we had enough systems and good leaders
To protect
and watch over our collective well-being.
Now we
know it was just a house of cards, driven mostly by hubris.
We
are living through an historical moment,
A
once-in-a-lifetime moment,
When we
get to reflect and ask ourselves
What have
we been building up all this time?
And more
significantly, what do we resolve to build when this is over?
Will we
just continue building where we left off?
Will we
compromise for a minor patch-up, and move on?
Will we
find the courage to utilize our new-found wisdom,
And start
building something more solid, better and more sustainable?
Are we
tired of building on quick sand,
Or will
we continue pursuing the quick, the shiny and the ephemeral.
Have we
learnt anything,
Or will
this moment just pass us and be forgotten
Like
another jolly kindergarten outing to the woods?
‘There
is only one way…to create the future we want
For our
children and grandchildren,
And that’s
to build it.’
The most
solemn bow we can give to this moment
Is to
seize its wisdom and live better.
We
can all contribute by resolving to build something better,
Or help
others in building something better,
Or teach
others how to build something better,
Or take
care of people who are building something better.
What we
can’t afford to do
Is sit
around and gaze at our navels, or at the gaps, failures and omissions
That
this moment has exposed to us.
‘Every
step of way, to everyone around us,
We should
be asking the question,
What are
you building?’
What and
how do you choose to contribute, when this is over?
That’s
life’s big question to all of us, right now.
- Mark Nepo has written an interesting poem related to the theme of this post, titled 'Fighting the Instrument'. He says:
"the storm is not as important as the path it opens...(and the hardest part in this might be embracing) the change while not wasting your heart fighting the instrument."
- There is also an interesting article by Strategy + Business titled 'Business lessons from Albert Camus' highlighting his book 'The Plague'. Below is an excerpt from the article related to the theme of this post:
"The Plague forces us to ask: What matters? Why do we live? How durable are our values? What do we owe one another? What is heroism? What is decency? It would be nice to think these questions are always foremost in our minds. Yet in normal life we rarely think to ask them, and the years slip away from us. A pandemic can bring them sharply into focus, which is what it does for at least some of the denizens of Oran in the 1940s when the rats start dying and bubonic plague... Today, with astonishing suddenness, the whole world looks like Oran. Our plague is new, but it raises the same old questions. What matters? Why do we live? How serious are we about our values? ... Is it possible that our great freedom and affluence were just a fragile dream obscuring our Sisyphean nature? Is the boulder about to roll back down the hill, reducing us all to mud huts, suspicion, and dread? That will depend on how we respond..."
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