Friday 19 June 2015

Tribute to a Refugee

Hunger conspicuous
By his sunken cheeks
And protruding skulls;
Rivulets of cold sweats
Down his brows
Falling like rancid whey.

Hordes of humans
Discarded in hostile lands;
Boats of innocent beings
Dealt with unfair hands.

Agony written large on her face,
Her vision blurred
And dreams cruelly curbed;
Cheated at home
And shunned abroad
No place to call her own!

Long marches of pained hearts
With placards and bands,
Squatters of chaste faces
Facing ugly hands.

Eyes starring into the horizon
Subduing the weeping him
For a crime not done;
Gulping poignant tears 
And fiery ire
For sympathy is unknown.

Increasing number of god’s very beings
Wondering who might he or she be;
In the company of millions alike,

Yonder cries a lone refugee.

Friday 5 June 2015

Happiness - A Micro Perspective

Background
Generally speaking, the ultimate goal of a human being is to maximize his/her happiness. Pursuit of happiness is an important human behaviour. However, economists, social scientists, psychologists and intellectuals are baffled about how to measure happiness. What constitutes happiness has been an area of serious provocation and studies by economists and social scientists. In recent years, the factors causing happiness and the tools and techniques of measuring happiness have been a cause for much debate. However, one thing has been firmly established – that the traditional concept of development as measured by Gross National Product is one sided and at best only shows one aspect of growth. International organizations such as the United Nations have long recognized the inadequacy of GNP to measure human happiness and have included parameters such as human development to measure the progress (or the lack of it!) of a nation. Closer home, we have our own Gross National Happiness (GNH), initially propounded by our 4th king, His Majesty Jigme Singye Wangchuck.   

Purpose: In this essay I would like to delve into the essence of happiness from a micro perspective by looking at certain factors, which I think, contribute to the happiness of an individual. Understanding individual happiness is crucial because a society is but a sum total of individuals.

Subjectivity: Happiness, to my mind, is highly subjective. What defines or constitutes happiness differs from individual to individual. Within an individual it differs from time to time. Human beings have different tastes and preferences; they are also driven by different ambitions and aspirations in life. Life of a human being is nothing but an exploratory journey. Man undergoes this journey choosing the kind of vehicle he likes and the type of road he prefers. Happiness, therefore, is relative to his aspirations and state of mind. To some people in Myanmar, happiness is, unfortunately, about chasing the Rohingyas out of the country; to a Rohingya, happiness is finding the first square feet of land after an arduous boat journey seeking refuge.

A. H Maslow in his theory of the hierarchy of human needs suggests that all human efforts are motivated by a need to satisfy certain basic human needs. Maslow informs us that the satisfaction of physiological needs such as hunger and sleep are the most basic needs of human beings. For without basic physical comfort and well-being, man cannot proceed onwards to fulfill his other needs such as need for self-esteem and need for power. After the basic needs are fulfilled human beings are not necessarily motivated by money and more money alone.

Livelihood: A source of steady income is important for livelihood and basic happiness. A state of unemployment is certainly not a happy state to be in. When the evening meal is not a certainty simply because what you have been taught in your higher secondary school is not good enough to earn you a plate of rice and ema-datshi[1], life becomes an ordeal. Happiness amongst the unemployed merely becomes a word understood as an antonym for sad. We don’t need Maslow to tell us that a hungry man is an angry man. Only when people are able to fulfill their basic needs such as hunger and social security and are free from fear would they be able to appreciate the importance of larger collective issues such as environmental protection and cultural promotion.

 Parental care: Parental care is crucial for an effective upbringing of children. A good parental drive leads to proper parental care and upbringing, which in turn brings out the best in children and human beings. As a parent of two young sons, I often wonder about their education, their future and their lives beyond their parents. I believe that parents need to be good role models for their children. Becoming a parent is easy for it is merely a biological function. However, becoming good parents requires much more; it requires discipline, transparency, diligence and empathy. It is, therefore, important for us to teach our children to appreciate what we have and not to crave for what is unattainable.






Money and wealth: Money, no doubt, is an important determinant of happiness. However, it doesn’t mean that money alone can bring happiness or for that matter more money would mean more happiness. Today’s children, especially in towns and urban centers are a happy-go-lucky lot.  For many students in Thimphu, Bhutan (as in many parts of the so-called developed world) who go to private schools in four wheel drives and SUVs driven by their parents, school is just an extension of the good life that they have at home. For such children, who go to bed with their smart phones and wake up to the call of their iPads, school has long ceased to be a necessity. For them school has rather become an inconvenience – a hindrance to the celebratory lifestyle that they live at home. These children of rich and educated parents are definitely happier than, say, the three siblings in Trashigang who live in a makeshift hut because their father is undergoing medical treatment in Thimphu and there is no one to look after them.  If we compare these two groups of children, both need money to be ‘happy’. While the Trashigang destitute need money to buy their basic needs, the rich urban children need a lot of money to maintain their exalted level of existence.

Social security and network: Man is one of the most social of all animals; very few one can live in isolation and in seclusion. We need support from family and friends to enable us to realize our full potential in whatever we choose to do.  Social security is an important requirement and it forms a crucial instrument of survival. The ability of an individual to understand the opportunities and challenges of the environment that he or she lives in and to be able to adapt to that environment is fundamental. In a way, one has to resort to some kind of a SWOT analysis to fully understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced. An individual is better able to survive in today’s cutthroat competitive world if he is able to adapt to the society within the limitations of his strengths and weaknesses. At the same time, the individual should be able to realize his/her strengths and opportunities and use them to stand out and make positive contributions to the society. 

Without support from members of our family and friends, it would not be possible for us to receive the much-needed feedback on our daily activities. Feedback is said to be the breakfast of champions. And without support, feedback, criticism, appraisal and evaluation from members of our family and friends, it would be difficult to undertake and achieve anything. Depending on his interest, man continuously looks for ways in which he can learn something new, create something new and different, visit new places, etc. In all his endeavors man looks for recognition for something he does. The recognitions he receives propel him forward and set him on a new path, to new and higher levels of creativity and achievement.

Ethics and aesthetics: People practice different trades and vocations to earn their livelihoods. However, people with a higher aesthetic sense tend to execute given tasks more efficiently and with a better visual impact. Take a simple case of electrical house wiring – some electricians tend to give a better finish to their jobs. In the process they not only perform the core function of electrification but also do it more beautifully. When you perform a job to the better satisfaction of who you are doing it for, it definitely enhances your own sense of achievement. Similarly, people do different kinds of business, essentially to make money. However, while making money they must be mindful of their social responsibilities and adhere to norms and laws. Ethical conducts in businesses, as in other walks of life, give you better peace of mind and societal acceptance. This contributes to happiness.

Environment: A growing number of our people are caught in rural-urban drift, in some cases leading to family rifts.  In our towns, when you wake up in the morning, the first sight and sound that greet you are the yelps of scabies ridden pups feeding on the dead corpse of their mother.  As a Buddhist, who believes in universal love and care for all sentient beings, your emotions are hugely challenged by such sights and sounds.

Parents, especially in urban areas, face an increasingly uphill task in bringing up their children. Bringing up children to be well fed, well dressed and well schooled is a huge challenge in itself. Some parents face the additional challenge of bringing up their children and wards free of harmful drugs, free from the scourge of aids, and free from any association with other social maladies. Parents dread to see the day their two year old, who was lovingly fed on imported malted food, grow up to sniff dendrite or petrol. The environment you live in affects happiness.

Religion and culture: Unfortunately, religion is not a word understood uniformly universally; it is multipronged and its meaning and connotations vary from place to place and person to person. Religion, culture and traditional values need to be carefully filtered and offered to our youth as a positive and potent tonic. Cultural and traditional values thrust upon the throat of our youth become bitter pills to swallow. The growing polarity of culture between our traditional etiquettes and the hip-hop Facebook generation of today must be taken up as an opportunity to educate our youth and not as another crime worthy of assault and impingement. The youths who fail to appreciate that sniffing dendrite is a crime, will find it hard to understand when told what to wear!

A sound practice of religion and cultural values definitely enhances the inner peace of a person. Achieving inner peace is not always easy, faced as we are with worldly longings and worries. A higher per capita religious attachment bodes not only well for the individuals but also for the country and the society at large. Even hardcore atheist economists have accepted that religion can play a positive role in economic development. Inner peace is like amrita, the ultimate elixir of life. However, individuals, leaders and policy makers must be able to understand the pluralities in our society and forge ways in which together everyone achieves more. Doing so will ensure that religion and culture will not become flaring points leading to invasions and conflicts as in the Middle East, but the cushion of societal cohesion as in many parts of the world.    

To the five year old Syrian girl, happiness comes from her prayers to stay safe from collateral damage of inter-faith war.  When a young child raises her hand in surrender at the sight of a photographer aim his lens at her, we know that humanity has failed. To her happiness is not about any pillar or any domain. When your bare survival is at stake as you hide in the basement of a bomb-ridden butt of a building, theoretical pillars are a luxury.

Conclusion: Happiness is elusive. To some extent happiness is like the proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. The closer we move towards it, the farther it moves - the bars are raised, efforts are made to accomplish it at a higher level and the struggle continues. The only thing constant about happiness is the pursuit of happiness!  



[1] Literally chili and cheese – the staple Bhutanese dish eaten with rice