EQUALS on this Earth

Who says you get to de­cide any­thing about me? Do you know me? If I do you no harm, live my life peace­fully, who says you get to tar­get me with your in­tol­er­ance, in­sults, vi­o­lence?

The ques­tion “What is wrong with peo­ple?” is wholly - WHOLLY - about those who at­tack oth­ers for no other rea­son than their own fear and loathing of dif­fer­ence and change, when each and every one of us is dif­fer­ent. Good­ness is one ca­pac­ity we share, but that is being sig­nif­i­cantly and alarm­ingly eroded along with the trea­sures of well­be­ing, such as trust and in­clu­sion, by mad­den­ing, dan­ger­ous big­ots at the tap of a key­board or smart phone.

The in­cli­na­tion to prej­u­dice with­out know­ing is seep­ing into con­sciences like a dis­ease, whether it is in terms of gen­der, eth­nic­ity or ori­en­ta­tion, or any other rea­son, and it is a dark­en­ing, ter­ri­fy­ing re­al­ity in what should be an age of en­light­en­ment and heart.

We so des­per­ately need kind­ness, tol­er­ance and well­be­ing in an in­clu­sive so­ci­ety, more now than ever, if we are to ride the storms of cli­mate col­lapse, the onset of mass ex­tinc­tion, the shadow of pan­demic, and, equally, the pal­pa­ble strain of men­tal health frac­tur­ing under the im­pos­si­ble weight of noise and know­ing. All these are un­de­ni­able truths it can be hard to live with. We are vul­ner­a­ble.

With ap­palling ease, un­fet­tered, shal­low, hate­ful in­flu­ence is em­a­nat­ing to fill the void some peo­ple feel, to in­fect the build­ing un­ease, and it is a hor­ri­ble evil.

Have we learned noth­ing from the past cen­tury? Have we? We have to call this out, talk about it, face it, stop it.

I de­spair. I can barely find the words to say how I feel about the ris­ing preva­lence of prej­u­dice.

We as a race must come to terms with so much, rapidly – changes that will shake the foun­da­tions of our be­liefs and se­cu­ri­ties – if we are to sur­vive and pros­per. But yet again hor­ri­ble in­di­vid­u­als and groups are feed­ing on fears, stok­ing dis­trust and ha­treds. Peo­ple are being as­saulted on our streets be­cause of be­liefs, gen­der, ori­en­ta­tion, race. It was al­ways in­tol­er­a­bly so, but we are see­ing it more and more once again, a sick­en­ing early sign of dystopia. In­tol­er­ance is a seed wa­tered by mega­lo­ma­ni­acs who sow fear and lies in table-thump­ing sound-bites that offer hol­low hope to an­swer the col­lec­tive dis­quiet that some­thing is wrong.

What is wrong is our fail­ure to each other and to our planet. What is wrong is our un­sus­tain­able lifestyle. What is wrong is the dis­tor­tion of words like value and worth. What is wrong is the per­pet­ual human propen­sity to turn in on our­selves, to lis­ten un­ques­tion­ing to self-serv­ing lu­natics and un­leash angst on some­body else, on peo­ple we do not know or un­der­stand. We have done it re­peat­edly through his­tory, seeded by fa­nat­ics, and we can­not, must not, let it hap­pen again.

Know some­one be­fore you judge them. Re­spect oth­ers in the hope you are re­spected equally.

I again give thanks to my fam­ily and friends and those among whom I live and work, and for whom this is a given.