Last March, I was asked to write an essay for an application exam here at work. The question was something like "What do you think is the greatest problem we face today?" And because sometimes I take things at face value, I tried answering it as the greatest problem of humanity itself, of the whole world, not just the greatest problem of the country or the organization I'm part of. As a result, I took many more days to come up with a slightly coherent answer.
Why do I keep making my life so difficult? :))
Why do I keep making my life so difficult? :))
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I have pondered quite a while on what could possibly be the greatest problem we face today. The human race has struggled through its existence for thousands of years, ruled by selfishness, pride, and many other follies that time and history haven’t been able to temper. The present age is wrought with a startling new breed of hazards and tragedies, of wars and cycles of deception, of crippling social norms and repressive ideologies, of natural and man-made catastrophes.
"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression," said the alter-ego of the narrator, Tyler Durden, in Chuck Palahniuk’s cult novel, Fight Club.
Every “great” problem is different, depending on who views it, and when and where it is viewed from. Just as art is subject to many interpretations, so are the travails that pervade our era. As someone privileged enough to eat three square meals a day, attain a college education, have a more or less sound body and mind, and access modest means for a bit of leisurely activities, I have come to believe that it is this “great war of the spirit” that seems to be greatest hurdle of this era.
Being a Millenial, a member of the Y generation, I live in the cusp of a revolution quite unlike humanity’s history has seen. Our generation is witness to some of what could possibly the world’s greatest advancements in engineering, technology, health sciences, and other vital aspects of living. Life expectancy rate is significantly higher than it was a mere century ago, and vaccinations for previously terminal diseases have been developed. We have also taken our place in the transition towards the highly-romanticized digital age that changed, and continues to change, how people live.
I do not mean to trivialize the hardships of the many people who do not have access to even the most basic of necessities, nor those people who are subject to prejudice, tyranny, or any other injustice I cannot even begin to comprehend. Just in this country alone, I know that staggering poverty exists, that some people do not even have a roof to sleep under, that some children have to toil instead of studying and playing.
Perhaps it is knowing these things and being unable to do (or believing that we’re unable to do) anything about them that makes “spiritual depression” a bigger problem than we realize. Inequalities still exist despite the strides humanity made because most is still hinged on the self, consumed by greed and unable to go beyond obtaining consumerist self-satisfaction. It is truly more convenient to exist in our own little bubbles of security and ignorance, apathy and individuality.
In her poem To Begin With, the Sweet Grass, American poetess Mary Oliver wrote, “Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.” For me, this is the most succinct exposition of what ails our world today, and what will heal it.
If only today’s mankind can fight and win the “great war of the spirit,” resources and capabilities will ultimately be used for the greater good, and not merely for selfish reasons. The world will come to an age of unbridled progress, where people look out for each other, and equality for everyone everywhere will not just be a far-fetched ideal.
