Just like the pied piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like Marionettes
Swaying to the symphony of destruction
– Megadeth
Madness? This is...Sparta!
Sparta was a warrior society of ancient Greece that rose to prominence and dominance following the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC).
Spartan boys at the age of seven received a comprehensive military training, socialisation, and state-sponsored education programme. Spartan girls too by six or seven, though separated from the boys, received a state-supervised education and were trained physically in combat, wrestling, and gymnastics, equal to the boys.
Every Spartan underwent a herculean rite of passage. A physical or mental trial. Once completed, it was believed they were born again.
The ancient Spartans also believed in intense competition. For the greater the competition, the harder you would push yourself.
They also believed in surrounding yourself with people who are ruthlessly devoted to becoming their greatest selves.
Most importantly, a Spartan refused to be a victim of circumstance.
Do we have that grit, endurance, and courage? Especially in a time like now where circumstances are abysmal and the pandemic crisis has hit our isle rapaciously and mercilessly?
Be safe and smart, not sorry
We most certainly need to be made of sturdier stuff to survive. But that’s not all, is it?
We need to also be equally smart, sensible, selfless at times, compassionate, more attuned than ever to ourselves, to each other, and our surroundings; we need to be vigilant as we are collected, learning to practise virtue and values as we must with caution and care. These are times where we need to prioritise, not compromise, our safety and health, or that of those who matter to us the most, and we need to find courage to take hard decisions to brave these raging tempests of a pandemic that ensues to mutate and evolve into diabolic new strains.
Which brings me back to the example of the Spartans. While we aren’t exactly facing warfare and battles they were conditioned to face, remember they were trained as much in combat as they were well versed in history, philosophy, poetry, culture, and the arts. The compulsory state-sponsored education system, the Agoge, emphasised and taught both men and women obedience, courage, endurance, and self-control.
Are these not things that we need to embed and inculcate ourselves if we are to be self-dependant and reliant on each other as a people to weather the coming cataclysmic torrents unseen and known?
The time is perhaps nigh that we not only take the current state of affairs seriously, but also adapt accordingly and act with greater accountability and responsibility as a nation, individuals, families, communities, organisations, academic institutions, etc.
Causality
Action, reaction.
Cause and effect.
Causality is the genetic connection of phenomena where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. Then the very essence of causality could be explained as the generation and determination of one phenomenon giving rise to another.
And is this not prevalent throughout our lives?
Humanity has scarred, defiled, and polluted the Earth, robbing it of its natural resources, contaminating and depleting flora and fauna where we have caused global warming and exacerbated climate change, and paved the way for great cataclysmic events as a result of our wanton acts and self-conceited deeds.
A careless individual tripping over an object along a staircase is a cause that may result in the event of that person breaking her/his leg.
Even the earliest thinkers concurred that there is an interdependence and correlation when investigating the natural world for the relevant causes of natural phenomena.
Take Aristotle. In “Posterior Analytics”, his definition of a cause has both an epistemological and metaphysical component to it. Aristotle speaks of the material cause (the physical properties), the formal cause (the form or defining characteristics), the efficient cause (the antecedent condition that brought it about), and the final cause (the ultimate purpose for its being).
While cause and effect is certainly applicable for positive and productive outcomes, in the grand context of the world’s current condition, with much of it seemingly on life support, while some nations have bounced back from the aftermath of pandemic catastrophe, some that were allegedly better are now in dire straits. Others are still in economic and social paralysis after the first torrents.
Has the situation around the globe exacerbated due to negligence, a lack of long-term strategy, and us having just dropped the ball along the way? Or is it inevitability shrouded in causality?
Old habits never die
As if the world stricken and galvanised by Covid isn’t bad enough, it looks like humanity has riveted back to its old habits.
The recently re-erupted tensions between Israel and Palestine is one such example – how things have reached culminating proportions where the violence has escalated into open conflict, men, women, and children losing their lives.
If we take the terrible, heart-wrenching situation in our neighbouring country India, where the Government failed its people, polarising and neglecting to have taken the necessary steps to battle the pandemic, it is now a haunting montage of rising flames of funeral pyres from cremation grounds, in a nation with the second-largest population of 1.3 billion people, facing a tsunami of corona infections and deaths. The country is without oxygen to treat patients (despite the Government claiming there is no shortage), choking on economic strain, and this can be attributed at large to the populace not adhering to Covid-19 safety protocols and the powers that be not enforcing it. Perhaps this is a familiar song orchestrated by metaphorical bards everywhere, resulting in the universal composition of a global grand opus titled “A symphony of destruction”.
There was a time when the Modi regime was unsympathetic to the rest of the world, even smug about having contained Covid after the initial wave. However, it’s apparent that the federal and state governments were underprepared and failed to protect and minimise any damage from the potential new wave – as is the case at the moment.
We’ve seen a massive disconnect between what has been practised and what has been preached in many other countries as well.
We cannot afford to be lax, to be careless, and to be indifferent as the global pandemic crisis has proven. Countries that were hit hard are recovering after administering stringent caution and safety protocols and countries that were poised for recovery are now in dark, opaque waters.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the total number of global coronavirus cases has surpassed the 153.9 million mark, whilst the deaths have increased to 3.2 million.
The US accounts for the highest number of cases and deaths, while Brazil and India are snapping at the heels.
But we are seeing the US and some of the western countries gaining a modicum of control and a mild sense of equilibrium from how it was before. And it is not just the sheer resolve of the administration, but a collective effort made by businesses and conglomerates, the people as a whole fighting systematically to contain the situation as much as possible.
Pandemic be damned
Look at the causality scenario here.
The nations that didn’t rest on their laurels and perpetually and consistently ascertained safety and security protocols vs. the countries that languished in pecksniffian grandiose and took it easy, now suffering immensely.
We need to be paying heed to medical professionals, coronavirus experts, chief analysts, and other experienced candidates who are cutting out the white noise, the pseudo-political rhetoric and blame, and are actually providing the public with useful and important information.
The public needs to wake the hell up and be cognisant, vigilant, and more focused now than ever before.
Corporations will comply with their 50% attendance rule and still expect employees to risk their own safety and that of their loved ones and physically be at work...But consider how high the risk is within enclosed spaces and being in close proximity to one another. Organisations want results and are dependent on processes, pandemic be damned. Many companies will slave-drive to increase sales and improve their bottom line (like banks in our country that brandish how they’ve enhanced the bottom line without truly lending any support to small and medium-sized businesses), but at the blink of an eye will replace an employee if need be.
It is a public duty now to steer away from further crisis, a collective effort to make integral contributions during this time. We as a people need to act responsibly and take accountability for our actions. The public must remember to practise safety and healthy precautions even more so now, and encourage and motivate others within our circles and communities. The public need to nurture community connections, developing and understanding the structural burdens on minorities and on the disenfranchised and less empowered segments, those who are struggling to make ends meet. The public needs to set out to protect and care for not just children, but the elderly in our neighbourhoods as well.
We need to build our community Spartan spirit and resolve as much as we need to build community immunity. We must foster and propagate hope. It is our duty now to create safety, to generate greater awareness of the risks we face if we fail to act now and with immediacy. And this is a time to be intelligent, to use our common sense, gifts and talents, influence and capabilities, and positions of status and power to enact change by practising what we preach and fighting as one to contain, control, and combat the coronavirus, which is the universal threat to all of mankind right now.
We need to stop bickering, blaming, and bludgeoning ourselves over stuff that no longer matters. Why fight over race, ethnicity, land, status, wealth, and power when the common enemy is non-discriminately obliterating humanity as a whole?
Like the ancient Spartans, let’s refuse to be victims of circumstance. Let’s fight this here and now. Before it’s too late.
It’s nearly too late...
Madness? This is...Sparta!
Sparta was a warrior society of ancient Greece that rose to prominence and dominance following the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC).
Spartan boys at the age of seven received a comprehensive military training, socialisation, and state-sponsored education programme. Spartan girls too by six or seven, though separated from the boys, received a state-supervised education and were trained physically in combat, wrestling, and gymnastics, equal to the boys.
Every Spartan underwent a herculean rite of passage. A physical or mental trial. Once completed, it was believed they were born again.
The ancient Spartans also believed in intense competition. For the greater the competition, the harder you would push yourself.
They also believed in surrounding yourself with people who are ruthlessly devoted to becoming their greatest selves.
Most importantly, a Spartan refused to be a victim of circumstance.
Do we have that grit, endurance, and courage? Especially in a time like now where circumstances are abysmal and the pandemic crisis has hit our isle rapaciously and mercilessly?
Be safe and smart, not sorry
We most certainly need to be made of sturdier stuff to survive. But that’s not all, is it?
We need to also be equally smart, sensible, selfless at times, compassionate, more attuned than ever to ourselves, to each other, and our surroundings; we need to be vigilant as we are collected, learning to practise virtue and values as we must with caution and care. These are times where we need to prioritise, not compromise, our safety and health, or that of those who matter to us the most, and we need to find courage to take hard decisions to brave these raging tempests of a pandemic that ensues to mutate and evolve into diabolic new strains.
Which brings me back to the example of the Spartans. While we aren’t exactly facing warfare and battles they were conditioned to face, remember they were trained as much in combat as they were well versed in history, philosophy, poetry, culture, and the arts. The compulsory state-sponsored education system, the Agoge, emphasised and taught both men and women obedience, courage, endurance, and self-control.
Are these not things that we need to embed and inculcate ourselves if we are to be self-dependant and reliant on each other as a people to weather the coming cataclysmic torrents unseen and known?
The time is perhaps nigh that we not only take the current state of affairs seriously, but also adapt accordingly and act with greater accountability and responsibility as a nation, individuals, families, communities, organisations, academic institutions, etc.
Causality
Action, reaction.
Cause and effect.
Causality is the genetic connection of phenomena where the cause is partly responsible for the effect, and the effect is partly dependent on the cause. Then the very essence of causality could be explained as the generation and determination of one phenomenon giving rise to another.
And is this not prevalent throughout our lives?
Humanity has scarred, defiled, and polluted the Earth, robbing it of its natural resources, contaminating and depleting flora and fauna where we have caused global warming and exacerbated climate change, and paved the way for great cataclysmic events as a result of our wanton acts and self-conceited deeds.
A careless individual tripping over an object along a staircase is a cause that may result in the event of that person breaking her/his leg.
Even the earliest thinkers concurred that there is an interdependence and correlation when investigating the natural world for the relevant causes of natural phenomena.
Take Aristotle. In “Posterior Analytics”, his definition of a cause has both an epistemological and metaphysical component to it. Aristotle speaks of the material cause (the physical properties), the formal cause (the form or defining characteristics), the efficient cause (the antecedent condition that brought it about), and the final cause (the ultimate purpose for its being).
While cause and effect is certainly applicable for positive and productive outcomes, in the grand context of the world’s current condition, with much of it seemingly on life support, while some nations have bounced back from the aftermath of pandemic catastrophe, some that were allegedly better are now in dire straits. Others are still in economic and social paralysis after the first torrents.
Has the situation around the globe exacerbated due to negligence, a lack of long-term strategy, and us having just dropped the ball along the way? Or is it inevitability shrouded in causality?
Old habits never die
As if the world stricken and galvanised by Covid isn’t bad enough, it looks like humanity has riveted back to its old habits.
The recently re-erupted tensions between Israel and Palestine is one such example – how things have reached culminating proportions where the violence has escalated into open conflict, men, women, and children losing their lives.
If we take the terrible, heart-wrenching situation in our neighbouring country India, where the Government failed its people, polarising and neglecting to have taken the necessary steps to battle the pandemic, it is now a haunting montage of rising flames of funeral pyres from cremation grounds, in a nation with the second-largest population of 1.3 billion people, facing a tsunami of corona infections and deaths. The country is without oxygen to treat patients (despite the Government claiming there is no shortage), choking on economic strain, and this can be attributed at large to the populace not adhering to Covid-19 safety protocols and the powers that be not enforcing it. Perhaps this is a familiar song orchestrated by metaphorical bards everywhere, resulting in the universal composition of a global grand opus titled “A symphony of destruction”.
There was a time when the Modi regime was unsympathetic to the rest of the world, even smug about having contained Covid after the initial wave. However, it’s apparent that the federal and state governments were underprepared and failed to protect and minimise any damage from the potential new wave – as is the case at the moment.
We’ve seen a massive disconnect between what has been practised and what has been preached in many other countries as well.
We cannot afford to be lax, to be careless, and to be indifferent as the global pandemic crisis has proven. Countries that were hit hard are recovering after administering stringent caution and safety protocols and countries that were poised for recovery are now in dark, opaque waters.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the total number of global coronavirus cases has surpassed the 153.9 million mark, whilst the deaths have increased to 3.2 million.
The US accounts for the highest number of cases and deaths, while Brazil and India are snapping at the heels.
But we are seeing the US and some of the western countries gaining a modicum of control and a mild sense of equilibrium from how it was before. And it is not just the sheer resolve of the administration, but a collective effort made by businesses and conglomerates, the people as a whole fighting systematically to contain the situation as much as possible.
Pandemic be damned
Look at the causality scenario here.
The nations that didn’t rest on their laurels and perpetually and consistently ascertained safety and security protocols vs. the countries that languished in pecksniffian grandiose and took it easy, now suffering immensely.
We need to be paying heed to medical professionals, coronavirus experts, chief analysts, and other experienced candidates who are cutting out the white noise, the pseudo-political rhetoric and blame, and are actually providing the public with useful and important information.
The public needs to wake the hell up and be cognisant, vigilant, and more focused now than ever before.
Corporations will comply with their 50% attendance rule and still expect employees to risk their own safety and that of their loved ones and physically be at work...But consider how high the risk is within enclosed spaces and being in close proximity to one another. Organisations want results and are dependent on processes, pandemic be damned. Many companies will slave-drive to increase sales and improve their bottom line (like banks in our country that brandish how they’ve enhanced the bottom line without truly lending any support to small and medium-sized businesses), but at the blink of an eye will replace an employee if need be.
It is a public duty now to steer away from further crisis, a collective effort to make integral contributions during this time. We as a people need to act responsibly and take accountability for our actions. The public must remember to practise safety and healthy precautions even more so now, and encourage and motivate others within our circles and communities. The public need to nurture community connections, developing and understanding the structural burdens on minorities and on the disenfranchised and less empowered segments, those who are struggling to make ends meet. The public needs to set out to protect and care for not just children, but the elderly in our neighbourhoods as well.
We need to build our community Spartan spirit and resolve as much as we need to build community immunity. We must foster and propagate hope. It is our duty now to create safety, to generate greater awareness of the risks we face if we fail to act now and with immediacy. And this is a time to be intelligent, to use our common sense, gifts and talents, influence and capabilities, and positions of status and power to enact change by practising what we preach and fighting as one to contain, control, and combat the coronavirus, which is the universal threat to all of mankind right now.
We need to stop bickering, blaming, and bludgeoning ourselves over stuff that no longer matters. Why fight over race, ethnicity, land, status, wealth, and power when the common enemy is non-discriminately obliterating humanity as a whole?
Like the ancient Spartans, let’s refuse to be victims of circumstance. Let’s fight this here and now. Before it’s too late.
It’s nearly too late...