Peace-is it?

A Green Path to Peace

"Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!"Bob Marley

 Well, with great jubilation over the legalization of marijuana in many parts of the world, most recently the United States, many post-colonial hippies, neo colonial seekers, and cyber punk activists may say that we are nearing the Marley Dream of One World or John Lennon type Peace. So Ganja for a Green Path for Peace.

However, the idealism of this paradise lost vis-a-vis the illusionary romanticism induced from the smoke and the haziness of marijuana, actually hits at the heart of the complex atoms of peace in the world today. Assuming, marijuana as a drug, a drug addict is a product of what the society really is. Thus, awarding Peace as one of the most overrated words in human history and it is layered with illusions, hallucinations and myths. Peace, is a complicated word and its definitions can vary from nations to people, from a Lennon, Gandhi, to Israel or even the Maoists. One must understand that the need for peace, arose from the very roots of creation as man was inherently, "solitary, nasty and brutish", according to Hobbes and many others to follow and to achieve a sense of civilization, they entered a Social Contract to maintain peace. But it is for us to assess, who trace their lineage to the earliest man, have we achieved the forgotten promise or the desired fantasy. With increasing points of agenda and propaganda of self-interests, profits, benefits, gains by various groups, sub groups ad further sub sub groups, peace is indeed, a difficult proposition.  An increasing overload and overdose of propaganda, kitsch and filth, muck et al, brings us to the million dollar question can peace really be achieved. It’s a question we need to ask the torchbearers of development(or at least they claim to call themselves) , who in the name of development and civilization, might have made the entire human race, sub human or may be not human at all.

“The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues.” G.K.Chesterton

 Green Path to Peace, I am sure many would be thinking, that this would be a write up, on environment and Mother Earth, our space of existence which binds the entire human race, after all we still have not succeeded in creating lounges and McDonald's in extra-terrestrial space or discovering Pandora. However, environment though common for all, is not the same for all. While many societies revere the Earth and intent to preserve it, whereas many directly link Earth as a treasure waiting to be plundered. So can one call it a same entity? A classic analogy from Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The case of Carbon Footprint limits in various International Bazaars is the most contemporary example and the latest proof is the hullabaloo at all the climate meets, where a common consensus is rarely reached.

 For me Green Path to Peace, is this: Green is a color of jealousy and envy and I think all of the countries in the world are following this path and now it has penetrated to all the micro components of the society with the growing spell of the shamans of globalization and witchcraft of the media and advertising quacks. A under developed country is envious of developed countries of their infrastructure and social fabric whereas the developed countries are envious of the not so developed ones, for its resources and exoticness. A lesson straight from the Hindu mythology which shows the futility as well as the destructive nature of enviousness, A Kauravian jealousy of Pandavas, leading to the Mahabharata aka the Armageddon, Dooms Day of sorts. Jealousy and enviousness have been key themes in Shakespearean plays, and have often resulted in disastrous results, such as Cassius or Macbeth. While many justify envy or jealousy as a propellant of healthy competition, but what if I say it is an eternal sickness. A lot of people may me feel, this is a completely cynical and nihilistic attitude towards the world, a little optimism would help. But similarly like religion, optimism is the opium of the people and surely reeks of stupidity.

“In the darkness of barbarism men knew the truth without the facts. In the twilight of half-civilization, they saw the truth illuminating the facts. In the full blaze and radiance of complete civilization they found all the facts and lost the truth forever.” G K Chesterton

 We need to morph/design out new original models of development for ourselves, our families, our societies, our countries and our world and environment, not by simply imitating existing dominant models but learning and evolving from them. Acknowledging the fact of individually multiple identities and making the reality of desi global happen, not only as a brand in a swish suave mall, but also in remote parts of our so already brain washed mind.

P.S. Here is John Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance".

        Here is Kant's reply to "What is Enlightenment?"

        Here is Piyush Mishra's song, Duniya.