Are we any happier than our forefathers?
Modern life has become synonymous with requiring more, consuming more, and destroying more. The quality of life has deteriorated and has become starved of human values. The satisfaction of life comes not so much from creature comforts as from the smile of a loved one, from sharing the joys and sorrows of our neighbours from helping a blind man cross the road and from seeing children grow up in a clean and safe environment. How simple and attractive all these images are and yet so far and difficult to achieve in today’s confused and mixed up world.
We do not have to go far to see the rot that has set into modern life. However, it is not unlikely, that on looking around, we might find our vision obscured by smoke and smog owing to the symbols of prosperity and progress the bars and buses; factories and power plants, etc. We are systematically destroying the very air that gives us life and the earth that sustains us.
Today, we have a wide variety of foods to choose from but the truth of the matter is that modern food growing techniques use pesticides and fertilizers and produce food that is positively unhealthy, if not dangerous. Heart-related ailments—blood pressure and hypertension—are offshoots of this diet. Is it not ironical that in spite of advancement in techniques of growing food, the world has never been as hungry and starved as now?
Sociologically, the obsession with material acquisition, the hallmark of so-called success, has created tremendous conflicts in society. The security of the joint family has been replaced by individualism of nuclear families. Alienation loneliness and maladjustment—these have led to neurosis. People are ready to sacrifice health and happiness, love and caring relationships and prefer to pursue material things.
The joy of knowledge and learning has been replaced by burdensome loads of books, stress and anxiety to perform better. Longevity has improved—but what kind of longer lives are these? Lives prolonged by chemicals, lives exposed to HIV virus, smoke, smog and pollution; lives on tenterhooks threatened by crimes and insecurity that lurk around the corners.
It is time for introspection. Perhaps our lives arc longer but certainly not better than what our forefathers lived.
