Back to the future

COVID-19 appears to be the answer to the fervent prayers of non human species to make human beings halt, contemplate, and replacetheir parasitic ways of living with more symbiotic ones which are not only in harmony with all living beings but also reverential towards Mother Earth, says Rishi Rathod

- Rishi Rathod

The visitation of COVID-19 has shaken up the whole world in an unprecedented way. If one can read the signs, it is a wake-up call for humanity to step down from the conveyor belt of mindless living and consuming. By living on autopilot and going through life without putting in much thought, we have violently trespassed spaces that rightfully belong to other species.

From the way animals, birds, and aquatic beings have come close to the edge of human habitat—after we went into enforced collective hiding—it can be surmised that Mother Nature is asking us to retreat so that other species could reclaim what is rightfully theirs. It is making a clarion call to make our lifestyles symbiotic with itself and not parasitic if we want to continue to survive on Planet Earth.

Humankind appears to have been forced into quarantine to contemplate if the business of living, operating, thinking, and relating to the world can be done differently from the way we have been doing it all along.

Conscious quarantine

Now that we have arrived at a critical point in history, we can no longer afford to ignore the manner in which we create, use, and dispose of consumables and the processes involved in providing ourselves with essentials such as food, water, travel, clothing, and shelter. For unless we change our attitude towards these things, we cannot re-imagine and recreate a new habitable world for all, where there is no clash of interests between man and Nature.

Thankfully, we already have a significant body of work by eminent people who point towards a better, non-violent, symbiotic, and spiritual way of going about the business of living. All that we have to do is embrace their advice.