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Being Orphaned in Modern Time

P. A. Joseph P. A. Joseph
08 May 2023
Everything is moving fast, material or immaterial. What is material is losing its space and relevance, as though it has no value at all.

When I look into my experience in the modern time, I am worried of being orphaned and out of place. We are living in a fast changing context, changing surroundings, diversifying milieu, innovative approaches, facing continuous U turns, replacing systems, fluctuating moments, hidden-under currents, totally unpredictable periods and insecure ways. 

Everything is moving fast, material or immaterial. What is material is losing its space and relevance, as though it has no value at all. Even the vehicles have to be in top speed, from cities to cities the movements have to be superfast. Road accidents multiply day by day, and naturally all slow-moving vehicles are losing their need and relevance. We are caught up fully in the present, what is gone is gone and nothing to think of it. We are in the time of mobile communications. Mobile phones have become the oxygen of even infants. Continuous incoming of messages, WhatsApp news, official information, advertisements, reports, etc. keep one in touch with the gadgets constantly. All the official communications are done online and practically little of paper reporting. We have become victims of speed and in a way one can say that speed matters and controls everything.

Another area to be reflected is the rapid change of moving to the flats in cities against the traditional villages or colonies. Here the social life is reduced to zero. One cannot think of social life among the flat dwellers. Living in the sky scraper, and even using the same lift mean nothing. No two persons or families know each other. There are no real neighbors. When/where there is social isolation, the mental stress is the natural consequence. In such context the humans function like automatic machines or like modern vehicles without a driver. 

Our brains have not evolved sufficiently for us to live in overcrowded cities and this has resulted in all kinds of anxiety-related disorders and problems. All these factors do not make us comfortable. We are cut off from the nature with all its traditional and unique values. In a way we are orphaned in our own quarters and are terrifically lonely in spite of the conveniences. We miss what we have to get from life, and we cease to enjoy living.

This culture of the modern age has left people as though cogs in the wheel. Whether one likes it or not, on has to move and function automatically, and it has reduced the persons in his/her dignity. The individuals have no function, no time or role to reflect, to select, to question  or for going for alternatives. What to say of team evaluation, the system will run by itself, no question disagreeing. Activities of the past are junk. Even great plans are not to be looked into again. Titanic with numerous millionaires has sunk deep in the Atlantic Ocean. There is nothing to think of it. What is over is over how big the project or movement be. This is not a helpless cry, but a critical observation.
 

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