Flower Child & The Ting Tings

My assignment for the weekend was to write a final paper for my History class. The question was: "Drawing upon at least two thinkers, analyze the problem of alienation in modernity". I ended up studying some of the works of Nietzsche, Freud and Dostoevsky. I also ended up writing a really depressing paper which contended that, sadly, man is not constituted to do good. It was a hard paper to write - not least of all because these gentlemen wrote incredible pieces that I feel unworthy, sometimes, to even begin taking apart - because I don't trust my own thesis statement.

I've always believed in the grand ideal of universal love. I've been taunted as a modern-day flower-child, but I don't care - better a flower-child than a lipgloss-child, I say - it's an identity I quite like. I know I sometimes piss a lot of people off with my sappy idealism, but somewhere a part of me refuses to believe that humanity is incorrigibly conditioned to do evil.

I'm not one of those people who doesn't like reading the news because it's "too depressing". I begin my mornings with the BBC website and my order of sidebar clicking is Africa, South Asia, Middle East, Sport (and, I shan't lie, I end the session by clicking on links that tempt me with headlines like "10 Things That Make Blokes Cry"). But between the myriad of civil wars and Zimbabwe, the serial bomb blasts in Bangalore-Ahmedabad and Indo-Pak border disputes, an unstable Iraq and an Occupied Palestine, and Cristiano Ronaldo's snake-like desire to move to Real (sorry, I take my football very seriously) - I find myself doubting convictions I've held for as long as I can remember. But I cannot help but believe.

I bet now's the time, you think, "Heal The World" will be playing in the background and doves will miraculously appear and fly from my outstretched arms into the open sky. No, it's not like that at all. I'm not saying we're perfect - I don't expect that we should all love each other and get along wondrously well. But we constitute a species that has had family structures and communities since time immemorial. If we can find it in ourselves to unconditionally love our families, to whom we are linked only by blood - why can we not find it in ourselves to find respect for the rest of humanity...with whom we share a commonality of experience!

I do believe that love can change the world. I think we tell ourselves that "man is inherently bad" to absolve ourselves of any responsibility - to make our conscience feel less guilty when we are hateful or commit sins against others. It's time we admitted to ourselves that we are just lazy - that we are not willing to commit to change and do what is necessary to open our hearts to universal love. It's something I want to take up as a challenge for myself. It's not enough to be indifferent or to stop hating - it's about being proactive and actually loving.

Also, I discovered a song that is helping me get through pre-exam stress and is making me less angry about writing such a morbidly depressing final paper. The Ting Tings are glorious, no?