All our basic needs – food, air, water, shelter – are polluted. This pollution is due to human greed.
Every living being need to satisfy natural desires like hunger, thirst, sleep etc. But modern society completely ignores natural desires and gives prominence to unnatural desires. These desires are not needs but society and culture makes a person believe that they are essential. Modern economy is based on greed not on need.
People are constantly tuned to buy more and more. Thus today we have people who own two or more houses, several vehicles, several mobiles…we own everything extra.
The number of desires that society and consumerism creates in an individual is often beyond the capacity of the individual. Most desires are beyond the means of an average individual. Today you have choices on what kind of basic education you provide to your children. For a 3 or 4 year old child to learn A, B, C some parents spend 100,000 in a year. Parents are forced to make such stupid choices.
There are 10 different types of wheat in a store. But what we forget is that all wheat does the same thing satisfy hunger. But still people are made to choose and most are forced to choose the costly one as it is neat…organic…more fiber etc etc. We pay extra because someone has polished our food and made it clean with chemicals.
The moment we wake up we are made to choose which desire to act upon. This continues throughout the day and we end up having sleepless nights.
People are not bothered about the pesticide in their food and majority of them have no idea what kind of water is coming into their homes but they are well aware about the mobiles, latest cars, every detail of film stars. Needs are often ignored for trivial things.
It has come to such a state even basic needs have been cleverly monetized. Drinking water to quench thirst is normal. But I will only drink bottled water to quench my thirst is what consumerism has done to us – what we do not realize is that just because it is bottled it does not mean it is safe.
We all need good water, air, food and shelter to lead a normal life. But modern world has polluted all these essential items. There is no good water, air, food or shelter for vast majority of people.
Everything that is artificial and superfluous gets preference over need.
Need is satisfied when one gets the object of need. We humans only say enough to food and water. This is because they are need.
But desires are never satisfied. It always remains unfulfilled and increases, just like fire on fuel. Modern humans are like fire and the desires thrust on us are fuel. We burn and perish to satisfy corporate greed.
Human beings can have a normal life and Mother Earth can return to its natural state only when humans realize that they are being overpowered by greed.
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Abhilash
www.hindu-blog.com
Abhilash