Locked down into submission?

In TV wrestling – not the Olympic sport, but the soap opera for kids, potential sociopaths and wife-beaters – opponents can be locked into a seemingly painful hold and forced to submit. Corona virus is undoubtedly the world heavy-weight champion in this regard. The world is tapping out, one-by-one. But why?

Corona virus is a deadly disease. Not because it has a high mortality rate, but because it spreads. And those with pre-existing medical condition, are most vulnerable to fall prey. Everything about this virus is scary, but aren’t we (humans) the epitome of life? We started out small, but we’ve wiped out the majority of life-form in our wake. Such is our blood-lust that when we don’t find others to kill, we kill our own. Statistically, we’re still killing far more people than this petty virus is. This virus is no match to our wrath. Ask the Yemenis and the Syrians if they fear the virus more. The lockdown around the globe is terrible. People miss going out. At least the chicken and the cows and the pigs are happy. They will soon start worshiping the pointy idol of the virus. Perhaps, they already have.

The world was a paradise before corona virus struck, right? Maybe for some it was, but certainly not for the majority. The institutions were crumbling. The economies were dwindling. War drums were echoing. Nature was retaliating. Allow me to navigate your jog down the memory lane. The NRC and the plight of Indian Muslims. The Rohingyas. Hong Kong protests. The Venezuela crisis. War in Yemen. Khashoggi’s assassination. Putin’s constitution amendment. Brexit. Yellow vest protests. Stock markets crashing around the world. Climate change. Syria. Julian Assange. Soleimani’s assassination. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We were heading towards disasters around the world anyway. The virus has possibly steered our attention and locked us in a hold. While we are locked in this hold, governments are taking liberties. Nothing is private anymore. Surveillance is rampant. They’re tracking everything and everybody. Trillions are being printed and handed over to corporations. This leads to the age-old question asked by most children, ‘why can’t we just print more money?’. Many of us believed that printing money at will is unwise and it can lead to a plethora of proverbs like hyper-inflation and devaluation of the currency, and here we are printing trillions. Anyway, we surely will get a cut of it, thousands, if not millions, right? Nope, but we – the tax payers – will be repaying it. Unfair?

There is a bright side to all of this. Now we have time. Time to think. Stuck in the corporate factory, many of us dreamed of having just a little more time for ourselves. We were under a lockdown back then too. Freedom was just an illusion. And here we are locked in a hold of a pseudo wrestler. It’s clear now that the entire game is staged. It’s just a bunch of ticket vendors who are profiting at our expense. The struggle has always been an act. We can either continue being the ideal citizen and tap, or we can counter and become free thinkers. Let’s abolish violence and money, and think of a new system. A system that doesn’t reward greed. A system that rewards those who innovate and create, not with possessions, but honor; something that is intangible, but way more real. This is our chance.