CB BureauThe way we human beings hurtle ourselves into disastrous scenarios has an
uncanniness about it. Think. The traffic signal is flashing yellow/amber and
it’s seconds before it goes red. We push the accelerator faster and make it to
the other side in a flash. Mostly, nothing happens. At the most, another driver
in a hurry will crash into your vehicle. In the least, the traffic policeman
will issue challan and demand a fine. In both eventualities, there is loss of
subjective degrees”but we take our chance.
We are in great hurry, perhaps driven by a tremendous sense of
self-importance. That’s a good thing – this blind belief in one’s place and
actions in the scheme of the universe. There is no time to observe too many
niceties, most of which are downright irrelevant. The traffic signal has no
idea of the value of my time.
Don’t even give me the hogwash of food and water security. Let the
leftovers go to the dogs or the garbage dump, for all I care. Whoever thinks of
such things, you tell me! And if I find packaged food tasty and convenient, how
is that your problem? Leave it to me to worry about my health. I have my health
insurance cover in case something goes wrong. Anyway, the world is full of
people who do nothing but give us worst-case scenarios. I suppose we can carve
a state called Paranoida for such people.
Frankly, there is so much of scientific and expert advice going around about
health, nutrition, and the environment that one is left puzzled. (Listen, if
you are really [really] interested, read this: Reducing
Food Waste: Making the Most of Our Abundance.) We are told that buying ‘local’
food – determined according to the distance it had travelled, the area where it
was grown, and by food qualities as well as the way it was produced – is ethical.
So, who is making a list of food that is not
transported all those miles in ships, trains, trucks, and planes, thereby not emitting carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases from fossil fuel-based transport?
When such a list does get made, perhaps government officials and
activists can circulate it to each household and paste posters in all places of
public convergence including stores. Better still, make it illegal to import
food. For the purists, perhaps there can be a University of Ethical Concerns
and Practices.
Let’s not forget that some of us simply do not understand either the
theoretical or the practical aspects of the so-called culture of prevention. My
country has prospered on the strength of its widespread culture of reaction. We
wait to see what precisely brought about a particular disaster – for instance,
what aspect of engineering precision was missing, or what percentage of safety
mechanism was overlooked, or what part of anything did we take for granted.
Only after the disaster happens can a reconnaissance be done, correct? It’s a
full-proof measure, if you did not know.
We are ever ready to appoint three-member high-level committees to
investigate things that went awry. We are even more patient about the time they
take to conclude that the disaster was waiting to happen since it was predestined.
Karma, okay? We are a god-paranoid country and cannot put responsibility for
anything, good or bad, on anyone except the all-powerful father in heaven.
In The Art of War, Chinese
philosopher Sun Tzu said, ‘If you want peace, prepare for war.’ If you want
war, then what? Destroy all possibilities of peace? Jokes aside, once you are
fully war-prepared, you might think that you might as well make use of your accoutrements.
Just wondering, I am. About how being war-prepared is a preventive state of
being. There must be some logic in it that evades me. How can the majority
wisdom be a lie?
In the United States, a report published in 2010 – by three national
health care associations – sought to drive home the clear benefits of
preventive medical measures in terms of probable subsequent costs as well as an
increased life span. By utilizing a complicated mathematical and statistical
procedure named Archimedes, scientists calculated the results of 11 broadly
identified, customized preventive services meant to decrease cardiovascular
disease, like stopping smoking, cholesterol control drugs, and losing weight.
The scientists claimed that the cardiovascular disease prevention
measures could add roughly two hundred twenty million life years during the following
thirty years, or an average of 1.3 years of additional life span for every US
adult. Of course, their basic assumption was that there were major lapses in
the prevention mindset, which meant there was huge potential to decrease
morbidity and mortality due to cardiovascular disease.
American philosopher Joseph Campbell had one mandate for life, ‘Follow
your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.’
However, if cholesterol control is not your idea of bliss, so be it. Let the
walls take over!