Waxes and Wanes

I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.

                                                                                                                                 ~Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999)

A number of evolutionary theories agree on the fact that we all started out at one place and eventually grew out across the planet. The explorative ones gave rise to the concept of urban, while the more content ones gave definition to the relative concept of rural.

While the urban has gone all out to become a melting pot of cultures, the rural still strives to preserve culture. Thanks to increased globalization, neither has been completely successful, however the urban – rural divide is evident across geographies.

This divide gives rise to an interesting phenomenon. When the textbook and stories of the urban become a reality for the rural folk, the inability to comprehend what is cooking in the pot causes discomfort and in many cases a cultural shock. The need to ‘belong’ suppresses the curiosity to understand, leading to a ‘jump in behaviour’ without actually knowing why one is doing what he is doing. The size of this jump is ascertained by the desperation to adjust – from subservient behaviour to please the urban to slipping in one’s own rural silo in the urban.

This jump is almost akin to a split personality – the outside is an exoskeleton of well-mannered ways, while the questions burning the inside have created an imaginary world. Anecdote of subservient, silos and everything in-between fuel the wonder. After a point, when the chance comes, the subconscious wants to live those possibilities – for some it is about good and for some about acts of questionable morality. The cycle repeats, herd mentality inspires many – easier to do the things which require less effort.

The urban exoskeleton is, in many cases, more refined. The inside, in most cases, is more troubled. These lines from the song Iris (Goo Goo Dolls, 1998) sums it up beautifully:

“When everything feels like the movies,

Yeah, you bleed just to know you’re alive”

While the rural tides of excitement do not always lead to the finest moments, the urban flight of fancy often becomes examples to be followed. Coupled with a desire to ‘belong’, the rural adapt to such deviations with their own illusory twist. The entire divide, the subsequent split personalities and a fear of not being able to fit in leads to strangers becoming opportunists.

We also do share closed spaces with strangers, almost on a daily basis, leading to the issue of safety (read: flights of fancy – urban/rural does not really matter). While economic and other considerations will not allow the space between people to grow, one always has the choice to choose their surroundings. Is it a sure shot cure? Well, no. But this is a world that we have helped co-create. We can either choose to crib about it or take baby steps towards making it a better place.