The Sinking Ship

My aunt says, the ship's sinking- and its our fate to stand by and watch it sink. This perfectly describes the way I feel, when I look around the state of my country, and even the world at large... the feeling I get reading the news each day. With every headline, my heart seems to sink a bit lower than it was a day before. There must be a deep limitless well, somewhere within me, where all this sorrow has found its place.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a chronically depressed individual. In fact, like most people, I want to enjoy life and be happy as much as I can. But these days, happiness is a bit hard to find. You can laugh at jokes that your friends forward you (but there is a tinge of sadness when you see the joke is about a recent tragedy- is this what we have come to?), you can visit places to amuse yourself (but you avoid certain areas/roads on the way- where there was a bomb blast or firing incidents), and you can watch TV (but you can't avoid that ticker at the bottom, telling you all the unfortunate news you'd rather not hear about).

It's not just about a certain city/country anymore. When I log on to the net each day, I'm greeted on my homepage by more global tragic incidents mixed with absurd celebrity news. When I log on to Facebook, I find one more tragedy per week to add to my sinking ship. When I read/watch the news... you get the drift. It's not surprising then, that my internal dialogue has this constant hum of "escape escape escape escape"...but where?

Why has the world today come to this? Is it because we are more connected that, we learn of more dreadful things happening around the globe? Is it because the media all over the world is consistently enamored by all things sensationally horrific? Was it this way before? I doubt it. Not in my parent's time. True, the world had its sad days, but I feel nowadays it's more frequent. 

I wish our generation wasn't stuck with the mistakes people made in the past. That we didn't have to live in this world full of anger, hate, crimes; with people after each other's throats, ripping bodies apart for their satisfaction. Others hell-bent on destruction of all that is good and human, or running after a mirage of commercialism. The race of life is too fast, too narrow, too single-tracked, too un-scenic, too plastic. Why?

Are humans today happier? Is this planet a happy place humming with life and creative energy? Or is it a sinking ship, dragged down with our misfortunes, greed and negativity?

No, I don't have an answer. Just escape escape escape....