It is sometimes sad to see how we, as humans, engage in meaningless activities. We sometimes get caught up in the web of animosity which can take us as far as tearing each other down, being inciteful or even wishing harm to others. 

At face value, all these may seem like things that are perfectly part of our daily lives, but if we dig deeper, we may find out that there may be something fundamentally wrong with this world. That is one thing that must also be the root cause of all the pointless and meaningless petty activities we indulge in. 

The fact of the matter is that a hundred and-something years from now, all of us will not be here. We would have all transitioned to other realms, wherever that may be. This alone should probably be the sole reason for us to be able to have awareness enough for us to refrain from any meaningless and hateful behaviour. 

This is because whatever grudges we may hold, or any bad energy we may have for the other will eventually be a waste of time, if not of life. We would rather wish to have beautiful and memorable experiences than going around carrying loads of resentment that only makes our lives miserable.

With this awareness, one would assume that we should spend more time building collaborative relationships than competitive ones. We should be kinder, and polite, and see ourselves in others or even live by the universal principle of treating others the way we would love to be treated. Instead, we constantly see one another as competitors and sometimes even as existential threats. 

We have adopted a system of scarcity where we feel and believe that we must always amass more than our neighbours to the point that we may even do so by fraudulent means. This has eventually become our blind spot not to realise that, ultimately, we are all expressions of one consciousness that thrives more from interdependence than independence and individuality. 

We are stronger as a pack but weaker as lone wolves. In every aspect of life, it just seems to be that good things are more difficult to do than bad things. It seems to be more difficult to love others than to hate – and this is with no reference to romance but love for other humankind. It is easier to spend time, energy and resources on war than maintaining peace. Those who you may think have gotten the point and talk of collectivism only use it as a scapegoat to manipulate the populace for selfish reasons. It is so hard to love one another to the point that we religiously recite “Love your neighbour” only to do the complete opposite on our first step out of the chapel. 

That is why at this juncture, we must not only mean what we say and say only what we mean, but even more importantly practice what we preach – or we continue to walk on a self-inflicted vicious and meaningless path to our graves.

*Karlos The Great

E-mail: karlsimbumusic@gmail.com.Uncommon Sense is published bi-weekly in the New Era newspaper with contributions from Karlos Naimwhaka. YouTube channel: Karlos Lokos